After the demise of the Second Triumvirate, Augustus restored the outward façade of the free Republic, with governmental power vested in the Roman Senate, the executive magistrates, and the legislative assemblies. In reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and those of tribune and censor. It took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule, he rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis ("First Citizen of the State"). The resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire.

The reign of Augustus initiated an era of relative peace known as the Pax Romana, the Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries, despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the Empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia; expanding possessions in Africa; expanding into Germania; and completing the conquest of Hispania. Beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy, he reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads with an official courier system, established a standing army, established the Praetorian Guard, created official police and fire-fighting services for Rome, and rebuilt much of the city during his reign. Augustus died in AD 14 at the age of 75, he probably died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son (also stepson and former son-in-law) Tiberius.

Name

At birth, he was named Gaius Octavius Thurinus after his biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius (or Octavian) between his birth in 63 until his adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC (after Julius Caesar's death).[4]

Upon his adoption, he took Caesar's name and became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman adoptionnaming standards. He quickly dropped "Octavianus" from his name, and his contemporaries typically referred to him as "Caesar" during this period; historians, however, refer to him as Octavian between 44 BC and 27 BC.[5]

In 42 BC, Octavian began the Temple of Divus Iulius or Temple of the Comet Star[6] and added Divi Filius (Son of the Divine) to his name in order to strengthen his political ties to Caesar's former soldiers by following the deification of Caesar, becoming Gaius Julius Caesar Divi Filius.

In 38 BC, Octavian replaced his praenomen "Gaius" and nomen "Julius" with Imperator, the title by which troops hailed their leader after military success, officially becoming Imperator Caesar Divi Filius.

In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the Roman Senate voted new titles for him, officially becoming Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus.[note 4] It is the events of 27 BC from which he obtained his traditional name of Augustus, which historians use in reference to him from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.

Early life

While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri, approximately 40 kilometres (25 mi) from Rome, Augustus was born in the city of Rome on 23 September 63 BC.[7] He was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum, he was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his father's victory at Thurii over a rebellious band of slaves.[8][9]

A denarius from 44 BC, showing Julius Caesar on the obverse and the goddess Venus on the reverse of the coin

In 59 BC, when he was four years old, his father died.[11] His mother married a former governor of Syria, Lucius Marcius Philippus.[12] Philippus claimed descent from Alexander the Great, and was elected consul in 56 BC. Philippus never had much of an interest in young Octavius, because of this, Octavius was raised by his grandmother, Julia, the sister of Julius Caesar.

Julia died in 52 or 51 BC, and Octavius delivered the funeral oration for his grandmother.[13] From this point, his mother and stepfather took a more active role in raising him, he donned the toga virilis four years later,[14] and was elected to the College of Pontiffs in 47 BC.[15][16] The following year he was put in charge of the Greek games that were staged in honor of the Temple of Venus Genetrix, built by Julius Caesar.[16] According to Nicolaus of Damascus, Octavius wished to join Caesar's staff for his campaign in Africa, but gave way when his mother protested;[17] in 46 BC, she consented for him to join Caesar in Hispania, where he planned to fight the forces of Pompey, Caesar's late enemy, but Octavius fell ill and was unable to travel.

When he had recovered, he sailed to the front, but was shipwrecked; after coming ashore with a handful of companions, he crossed hostile territory to Caesar's camp, which impressed his great-uncle considerably.[14]Velleius Paterculus reports that after that time, Caesar allowed the young man to share his carriage.[18] When back in Rome, Caesar deposited a new will with the Vestal Virgins, naming Octavius as the prime beneficiary.[19]

Octavius was studying and undergoing military training in Apollonia, Illyria, when Julius Caesar was killed on the Ides of March (15 March) 44 BC. He rejected the advice of some army officers to take refuge with the troops in Macedonia and sailed to Italy to ascertain whether he had any potential political fortunes or security.[20] Caesar had no living legitimate children under Roman law,[note 6] and so had adopted Octavius, his grand-nephew, making him his primary heir.[21] Mark Antony later charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favours, though Suetonius describes Antony's accusation as political slander,[22] after landing at Lupiae near Brundisium, Octavius learned the contents of Caesar's will, and only then did he decide to become Caesar's political heir as well as heir to two-thirds of his estate.[16][20][23]

Upon his adoption, Octavius assumed his great-uncle's name Gaius Julius Caesar. Roman citizens adopted into a new family usually retained their old nomen in cognomen form (e.g., Octavianus for one who had been an Octavius, Aemilianus for one who had been an Aemilius, etc.). However, though some of his contemporaries did,[24] there is no evidence that Octavius ever himself officially used the name Octavianus, as it would have made his modest origins too obvious.[25][26][27] Historians usually refer to the new Caesar as Octavian during the time between his adoption and his assumption of the name Augustus in 27 BC in order to avoid confusing the dead dictator with his heir.[28]

Octavian could not rely on his limited funds to make a successful entry into the upper echelons of the Roman political hierarchy,[29] after a warm welcome by Caesar's soldiers at Brundisium,[30] Octavian demanded a portion of the funds that were allotted by Caesar for the intended war against the Parthian Empire in the Middle East,[29] this amounted to 700 million sesterces stored at Brundisium, the staging ground in Italy for military operations in the east.[31]

A later senatorial investigation into the disappearance of the public funds took no action against Octavian, since he subsequently used that money to raise troops against the Senate's arch enemy Mark Antony.[30] Octavian made another bold move in 44 BC when, without official permission, he appropriated the annual tribute that had been sent from Rome's Near Eastern province to Italy.[26][32]

Octavian began to bolster his personal forces with Caesar's veteran legionaries and with troops designated for the Parthian war, gathering support by emphasizing his status as heir to Caesar,[20][33] on his march to Rome through Italy, Octavian's presence and newly acquired funds attracted many, winning over Caesar's former veterans stationed in Campania.[26] By June, he had gathered an army of 3,000 loyal veterans, paying each a salary of 500 denarii.[34][35][36]

Growing tensions

A reconstructed statue of Augustus as a younger Octavian, dated ca. 30 BC

Arriving in Rome on 6 May 44 BC,[26] Octavian found consul Mark Antony, Caesar's former colleague, in an uneasy truce with the dictator's assassins, they had been granted a general amnesty on 17 March, yet Antony succeeded in driving most of them out of Rome.[26] This was due to his "inflammatory" eulogy given at Caesar's funeral, mounting public opinion against the assassins.[26]

Mark Antony was amassing political support, but Octavian still had opportunity to rival him as the leading member of the faction supporting Caesar. Mark Antony had lost the support of many Romans and supporters of Caesar when he initially opposed the motion to elevate Caesar to divine status.[37] Octavian failed to persuade Antony to relinquish Caesar's money to him, during the summer, he managed to win support from Caesarian sympathizers, however, who saw the younger heir as the lesser evil and hoped to manipulate him, or to bear with him during their efforts to get rid of Antony.[38]

Octavian began to make common cause with the Optimates, the former enemies of Caesar; in September, the leading Optimate orator Marcus Tullius Cicero began to attack Antony in a series of speeches portraying him as a threat to the Republican order.[39][40] With opinion in Rome turning against him and his year of consular power nearing its end, Antony attempted to pass laws that would lend him control over Cisalpine Gaul, which had been assigned as part of his province, from Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, one of Caesar's assassins.[41][42]

Octavian meanwhile built up a private army in Italy by recruiting Caesarian veterans and, on 28 November, he won over two of Antony's legions with the enticing offer of monetary gain.[43][44][45] In the face of Octavian's large and capable force, Antony saw the danger of staying in Rome and, to the relief of the Senate, he fled to Cisalpine Gaul, which was to be handed to him on 1 January.[45]

First conflict with Antony

Decimus Brutus refused to give up Cisalpine Gaul, so Antony besieged him at Mutina.[46] Antony rejected the resolutions passed by the Senate to stop the violence, as the Senate had no army of its own to challenge him, this provided an opportunity for Octavian, who already was known to have armed forces.[44] Cicero also defended Octavian against Antony's taunts about Octavian's lack of noble lineage and aping of Julius Caesar's name, stating "we have no more brilliant example of traditional piety among our youth."[47]

At the urging of Cicero, the Senate inducted Octavian as senator on 1 January 43 BC, yet he also was given the power to vote alongside the former consuls.[44][45] In addition, Octavian was granted propraetorimperium (commanding power) which legalized his command of troops, sending him to relieve the siege along with Hirtius and Pansa (the consuls for 43 BC).[44][48] In April 43 BC, Antony's forces were defeated at the battles of Forum Gallorum and Mutina, forcing Antony to retreat to Transalpine Gaul. Both consuls were killed, however, leaving Octavian in sole command of their armies.[49][50]

The senate heaped many more rewards on Decimus Brutus than on Octavian for defeating Antony, then attempted to give command of the consular legions to Decimus Brutus—yet Octavian decided not to cooperate.[51] Instead, Octavian stayed in the Po Valley and refused to aid any further offensive against Antony;[52] in July, an embassy of centurions sent by Octavian entered Rome and demanded that he receive the consulship left vacant by Hirtius and Pansa.[53]

Octavian also demanded that the decree should be rescinded which declared Antony a public enemy.[52] When this was refused, he marched on the city with eight legions,[52] he encountered no military opposition in Rome, and on 19 August 43 BC was elected consul with his relative Quintus Pedius as co-consul.[54][55] Meanwhile, Antony formed an alliance with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, another leading Caesarian.[56]

Second Triumvirate

Proscriptions

Roman aureus bearing the portraits of Mark Antony (left) and Octavian (right), issued in 41 BC to celebrate the establishment of the Second Triumvirate by Octavian, Antony and Marcus Lepidus in 43 BC. Both sides bear the inscription "III VIR R P C", meaning "One of Three Men for the Regulation of the Republic".[57]

The estimation that 300 senators were proscribed was presented by Appian, although his earlier contemporary Livy asserted that only 130 senators had been proscribed,[61] this decree issued by the triumvirate was motivated in part by a need to raise money to pay the salaries of their troops for the upcoming conflict against Caesar's assassins, Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger and Gaius Cassius Longinus.[62] Rewards for their arrest gave incentive for Romans to capture those proscribed, while the assets and properties of those arrested were seized by the triumvirs.[60]

Contemporary Roman historians provide conflicting reports as to which triumvir was most responsible for the proscriptions and killing. However, the sources agree that enacting the proscriptions was a means by all three factions to eliminate political enemies.[63]Marcus Velleius Paterculus asserted that Octavian tried to avoid proscribing officials whereas Lepidus and Antony were to blame for initiating them.[64]Cassius Dio defended Octavian as trying to spare as many as possible, whereas Antony and Lepidus, being older and involved in politics longer, had many more enemies to deal with.[64]

This claim was rejected by Appian, who maintained that Octavian shared an equal interest with Lepidus and Antony in eradicating his enemies.[65] Suetonius said that Octavian was reluctant to proscribe officials, but did pursue his enemies with more vigor than the other triumvirs.[63]Plutarch described the proscriptions as a ruthless and cutthroat swapping of friends and family among Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian. For example, Octavian allowed the proscription of his ally Cicero, Antony the proscription of his maternal uncle Lucius Julius Caesar (the consul of 64 BC), and Lepidus his brother Paullus.[64]

Battle of Philippi and division of territory

On 1 January 42 BC, the Senate posthumously recognized Julius Caesar as a divinity of the Roman state, Divus Iulius. Octavian was able to further his cause by emphasizing the fact that he was Divi filius, "Son of God".[66] Antony and Octavian then sent 28 legions by sea to face the armies of Brutus and Cassius, who had built their base of power in Greece,[67] after two battles at Philippi in Macedonia in October 42, the Caesarian army was victorious and Brutus and Cassius committed suicide. Mark Antony later used the examples of these battles as a means to belittle Octavian, as both battles were decisively won with the use of Antony's forces;[68] in addition to claiming responsibility for both victories, Antony also branded Octavian as a coward for handing over his direct military control to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa instead.[68]

After Philippi, a new territorial arrangement was made among the members of the Second Triumvirate. Gaul and the provinces of Hispania and Italia were placed in the hands of Octavian. Antony traveled east to Egypt where he allied himself with Queen Cleopatra VII, the former lover of Julius Caesar and mother of Caesar's infant son Caesarion. Lepidus was left with the province of Africa, stymied by Antony, who conceded Hispania to Octavian instead.[69]

Octavian was left to decide where in Italy to settle the tens of thousands of veterans of the Macedonian campaign, whom the triumvirs had promised to discharge, the tens of thousands who had fought on the republican side with Brutus and Cassius could easily ally with a political opponent of Octavian if not appeased, and they also required land.[69] There was no more government-controlled land to allot as settlements for their soldiers, so Octavian had to choose one of two options: alienating many Roman citizens by confiscating their land, or alienating many Roman soldiers who could mount a considerable opposition against him in the Roman heartland. Octavian chose the former.[70] There were as many as eighteen Roman towns affected by the new settlements, with entire populations driven out or at least given partial evictions.[71]

Rebellion and marriage alliances

There was widespread dissatisfaction with Octavian over these settlements of his soldiers, and this encouraged many to rally at the side of Lucius Antonius, who was brother of Mark Antony and supported by a majority in the Senate.[71] Meanwhile, Octavian asked for a divorce from Clodia Pulchra, the daughter of Fulvia (Mark Antony's wife) and her first husband Publius Clodius Pulcher, he returned Clodia to her mother, claiming that their marriage had never been consummated. Fulvia decided to take action. Together with Lucius Antonius, she raised an army in Italy to fight for Antony's rights against Octavian. Lucius and Fulvia took a political and martial gamble in opposing Octavian, however, since the Roman army still depended on the triumvirs for their salaries.[71] Lucius and his allies ended up in a defensive siege at Perusia (modern Perugia), where Octavian forced them into surrender in early 40 BC.[71]

Lucius and his army were spared, due to his kinship with Antony, the strongman of the East, while Fulvia was exiled to Sicyon.[72] Octavian showed no mercy, however, for the mass of allies loyal to Lucius; on 15 March, the anniversary of Julius Caesar's assassination, he had 300 Roman senators and equestrians executed for allying with Lucius.[73] Perusia also was pillaged and burned as a warning for others,[72] this bloody event sullied Octavian's reputation and was criticized by many, such as Augustan poet Sextus Propertius.[73]

Fresco paintings inside the House of Augustus, his residence during his reign as emperor

Sextus Pompeius was the son of First Triumvir Pompey and still a renegade general following Julius Caesar's victory over his father. He was established in Sicily and Sardinia as part of an agreement reached with the Second Triumvirate in 39 BC.[74] Both Antony and Octavian were vying for an alliance with Pompeius, who was a member of the republican party, ironically, not the Caesarian faction.[73] Octavian succeeded in a temporary alliance in 40 BC when he married Scribonia, a daughter of Lucius Scribonius Libo who was a follower of Sextus Pompeius as well as his father-in-law.[73] Scribonia gave birth to Octavian's only natural child, Julia, who was born the same day that he divorced her to marry Livia Drusilla, little more than a year after their marriage.[73]

While in Egypt, Antony had been engaged in an affair with Cleopatra and had fathered three children with her.[75] Aware of his deteriorating relationship with Octavian, Antony left Cleopatra; he sailed to Italy in 40 BC with a large force to oppose Octavian, laying siege to Brundisium. This new conflict proved untenable for both Octavian and Antony, however, their centurions, who had become important figures politically, refused to fight due to their Caesarian cause, while the legions under their command followed suit.[76][77] Meanwhile, in Sicyon, Antony's wife Fulvia died of a sudden illness while Antony was en route to meet her. Fulvia's death and the mutiny of their centurions allowed the two remaining triumvirs to effect a reconciliation.[76][77]

In the autumn of 40, Octavian and Antony approved the Treaty of Brundisium, by which Lepidus would remain in Africa, Antony in the East, Octavian in the West, the Italian Peninsula was left open to all for the recruitment of soldiers, but in reality, this provision was useless for Antony in the East.[76] To further cement relations of alliance with Mark Antony, Octavian gave his sister, Octavia Minor, in marriage to Antony in late 40 BC.[76] During their marriage, Octavia gave birth to two daughters (known as Antonia the Elder and Antonia Minor).

Sextus Pompeius threatened Octavian in Italy by denying shipments of grain through the Mediterranean Sea to the peninsula. Pompeius' own son was put in charge as naval commander in the effort to cause widespread famine in Italy.[77] Pompeius' control over the sea prompted him to take on the name Neptuni filius, "son of Neptune".[78] A temporary peace agreement was reached in 39 BC with the treaty of Misenum; the blockade on Italy was lifted once Octavian granted Pompeius Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and the Peloponnese, and ensured him a future position as consul for 35 BC.[77][78]

The territorial agreement between the triumvirate and Sextus Pompeius began to crumble once Octavian divorced Scribonia and married Livia on 17 January 38 BC.[79] One of Pompeius' naval commanders betrayed him and handed over Corsica and Sardinia to Octavian. Octavian lacked the resources to confront Pompeius alone, however, so an agreement was reached with the Second Triumvirate's extension for another five-year period beginning in 37 BC.[59][80]

In supporting Octavian, Antony expected to gain support for his own campaign against the Parthian Empire, desiring to avenge Rome's defeat at Carrhae in 53 BC.[80] In an agreement reached at Tarentum, Antony provided 120 ships for Octavian to use against Pompeius, while Octavian was to send 20,000 legionaries to Antony for use against Parthia.[81] Octavian sent only a tenth of those promised, however, which Antony viewed as an intentional provocation.[81]

Octavian and Lepidus launched a joint operation against Sextus in Sicily in 36 BC.[82] Despite setbacks for Octavian, the naval fleet of Sextus Pompeius was almost entirely destroyed on 3 September by general Agrippa at the naval Battle of Naulochus.[83] Sextus fled to the east with his remaining forces, where he was captured and executed in Miletus by one of Antony's generals the following year,[83] as Lepidus and Octavian accepted the surrender of Pompeius' troops, Lepidus attempted to claim Sicily for himself, ordering Octavian to leave.[83] Lepidus' troops deserted him, however, and defected to Octavian since they were weary of fighting and were enticed by Octavian's promises of money.[83]

Lepidus surrendered to Octavian and was permitted to retain the office of Pontifex Maximus (head of the college of priests), but was ejected from the Triumvirate, his public career at an end, and effectively was exiled to a villa at Cape Circei in Italy.[62][83] The Roman dominions were now divided between Octavian in the West and Antony in the East. Octavian ensured Rome's citizens of their rights to property in order to maintain peace and stability in his portion of the Empire, this time, he settled his discharged soldiers outside of Italy, while also returning 30,000 slaves to their former Roman owners—slaves who had fled to join Pompeius' army and navy.[84] Octavian had the Senate grant him, his wife, and his sister tribunalimmunity, or sacrosanctitas, in order to ensure his own safety and that of Livia and Octavia once he returned to Rome.[85]

War with Antony

Meanwhile, Antony's campaign turned disastrous against Parthia, tarnishing his image as a leader, and the mere 2,000 legionaries sent by Octavian to Antony were hardly enough to replenish his forces,[86] on the other hand, Cleopatra could restore his army to full strength; he already was engaged in a romantic affair with her, so he decided to send Octavia back to Rome.[87] Octavian used this to spread propaganda implying that Antony was becoming less than Roman because he rejected a legitimate Roman spouse for an "Oriental paramour";[88] in 36 BC, Octavian used a political ploy to make himself look less autocratic and Antony more the villain by proclaiming that the civil wars were coming to an end, and that he would step down as triumvir—if only Antony would do the same. Antony refused.[89]

Roman troops captured the Kingdom of Armenia in 34 BC, and Antony made his son Alexander Helios the ruler of Armenia. He also awarded the title "Queen of Kings" to Cleopatra, acts that Octavian used to convince the Roman Senate that Antony had ambitions to diminish the preeminence of Rome.[88] Octavian became consul once again on 1 January 33 BC, and he opened the following session in the Senate with a vehement attack on Antony's grants of titles and territories to his relatives and to his queen.[90]

The breach between Antony and Octavian prompted a large portion of the Senators, as well as both of that year's consuls, to leave Rome and defect to Antony. However, Octavian received two key deserters from Antony in the autumn of 32 BC: Munatius Plancus and Marcus Titius.[91] These defectors gave Octavian the information that he needed to confirm with the Senate all the accusations that he made against Antony.[92]

Octavian forcibly entered the temple of the Vestal Virgins and seized Antony's secret will, which he promptly publicized, the will would have given away Roman-conquered territories as kingdoms for his sons to rule, and designated Alexandria as the site for a tomb for him and his queen.[93][94] In late 32 BC, the Senate officially revoked Antony's powers as consul and declared war on Cleopatra's regime in Egypt.[95][96]

In early 31 BC, Antony and Cleopatra were temporarily stationed in Greece when Octavian gained a preliminary victory: the navy successfully ferried troops across the Adriatic Sea under the command of Agrippa.[97] Agrippa cut off Antony and Cleopatra's main force from their supply routes at sea, while Octavian landed on the mainland opposite the island of Corcyra (modern Corfu) and marched south.[97] Trapped on land and sea, deserters of Antony's army fled to Octavian's side daily while Octavian's forces were comfortable enough to make preparations.[97]

Antony's fleet sailed through the bay of Actium on the western coast of Greece in a desperate attempt to break free of the naval blockade, it was there that Antony's fleet faced the much larger fleet of smaller, more maneuverable ships under commanders Agrippa and Gaius Sosius in the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC.[100] Antony and his remaining forces were spared only due to a last-ditch effort by Cleopatra's fleet that had been waiting nearby.[101]

Octavian pursued them and defeated their forces in Alexandria on 1 August 30 BC—after which Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide. Antony fell on his own sword and was taken by his soldiers back to Alexandria where he died in Cleopatra's arms. Cleopatra died soon after, reputedly by the venomous bite of an asp or by poison.[102] Octavian had exploited his position as Caesar's heir to further his own political career, and he was well aware of the dangers in allowing another person to do the same, he therefore followed the advice of Arius Didymus that "two Caesars are one too many", ordering Caesarion, Julius Caesar's son by Cleopatra, killed, while sparing Cleopatra's children by Antony, with the exception of Antony's older son.[103][104] Octavian had previously shown little mercy to surrendered enemies and acted in ways that had proven unpopular with the Roman people, yet he was given credit for pardoning many of his opponents after the Battle of Actium.[105]

Sole ruler of Rome

After Actium and the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian was in a position to rule the entire Republic under an unofficial principate[106]—but he had to achieve this through incremental power gains, he did so by courting the Senate and the people while upholding the republican traditions of Rome, appearing that he was not aspiring to dictatorship or monarchy.[107][108] Marching into Rome, Octavian and Marcus Agrippa were elected as dual consuls by the Senate.[109]

Years of civil war had left Rome in a state of near lawlessness, but the Republic was not prepared to accept the control of Octavian as a despot, at the same time, Octavian could not simply give up his authority without risking further civil wars among the Roman generals and, even if he desired no position of authority whatsoever, his position demanded that he look to the well-being of the city of Rome and the Roman provinces. Octavian's aims from this point forward were to return Rome to a state of stability, traditional legality, and civility by lifting the overt political pressure imposed on the courts of law and ensuring free elections—in name at least.[110]

First settlement

Octavian as a magistrate. The statue's marble head was made c. 30–20 BC, the body sculpted in the 2nd century AD (Louvre, Paris).

In 27 BC, Octavian made a show of returning full power to the Roman Senate and relinquishing his control of the Roman provinces and their armies.[109] Under his consulship, however, the Senate had little power in initiating legislation by introducing bills for senatorial debate.[109] Octavian was no longer in direct control of the provinces and their armies, but he retained the loyalty of active duty soldiers and veterans alike,[109] the careers of many clients and adherents depended on his patronage, as his financial power was unrivaled in the Roman Republic.[109] Historian Werner Eck states:

The sum of his power derived first of all from various powers of office delegated to him by the Senate and people, secondly from his immense private fortune, and thirdly from numerous patron-client relationships he established with individuals and groups throughout the Empire. All of them taken together formed the basis of his auctoritas, which he himself emphasized as the foundation of his political actions.[111]

To a large extent, the public were aware of the vast financial resources that Octavian commanded, he failed to encourage enough senators to finance the building and maintenance of networks of roads in Italy in 20 BC, but he undertook direct responsibility for them.[112] This was publicized on the Roman currency issued in 16 BC, after he donated vast amounts of money to the aerarium Saturni, the public treasury.[112]

According to H. H. Scullard, however, Octavian's power was based on the exercise of "a predominant military power and ... the ultimate sanction of his authority was force, however much the fact was disguised."[113]

The Senate proposed to Octavian, the victor of Rome's civil wars, that he once again assume command of the provinces, the Senate's proposal was a ratification of Octavian's extra-constitutional power. Through the Senate, Octavian was able to continue the appearance of a still-functional constitution. Feigning reluctance, he accepted a ten-year responsibility of overseeing provinces that were considered chaotic.[114][115]

The provinces ceded to him for that ten-year period comprised much of the conquered Roman world, including all of Hispania and Gaul, Syria, Cilicia, Cyprus, and Egypt.[114][116] Moreover, command of these provinces provided Octavian with control over the majority of Rome's legions.[116][117]

While Octavian acted as consul in Rome, he dispatched senators to the provinces under his command as his representatives to manage provincial affairs and ensure that his orders were carried out,[117] the provinces not under Octavian's control were overseen by governors chosen by the Roman Senate.[117] Octavian became the most powerful political figure in the city of Rome and in most of its provinces, but he did not have a monopoly on political and martial power.[118]

The Senate still controlled North Africa, an important regional producer of grain, as well as Illyria and Macedonia, two strategic regions with several legions.[118] However, the Senate had control of only five or six legions distributed among three senatorial proconsuls, compared to the twenty legions under the control of Octavian, and their control of these regions did not amount to any political or military challenge to Octavian.[107][113]

The Senate's control over some of the Roman provinces helped maintain a republican façade for the autocratic Principate.[107] Also, Octavian's control of entire provinces followed Republican-era precedents for the objective of securing peace and creating stability, in which such prominent Romans as Pompey had been granted similar military powers in times of crisis and instability.[107]

Change to Augustus

On 16 January 27 BC the Senate gave Octavian the new titles of Augustus and Princeps.[119]Augustus is from the Latin word Augere (meaning to increase) and can be translated as "the illustrious one".[105] It was a title of religious authority rather than political authority.[105] According to Roman religious beliefs, the title symbolized a stamp of authority over humanity—and in fact nature—that went beyond any constitutional definition of his status, after the harsh methods employed in consolidating his control, the change in name served to demarcate his benign reign as Augustus from his reign of terror as Octavian.

His new title of Augustus was also more favorable than Romulus, the previous one which he styled for himself in reference to the story of the legendary founder of Rome, which symbolized a second founding of Rome,[105] the title of Romulus was associated too strongly with notions of monarchy and kingship, an image that Octavian tried to avoid.[120]Princeps comes from the Latin phrase primum caput, "the first head", originally meaning the oldest or most distinguished senator whose name would appear first on the senatorial roster. In the case of Augustus, however, it became an almost regnal title for a leader who was first in charge.[121]Princeps had also been a title under the Republic for those who had served the state well; for example, Pompey had held the title.

Augustus also styled himself as Imperator Caesar divi filius, "Commander Caesar son of the deified one",[119] with this title, he boasted his familial link to deified Julius Caesar, and the use of Imperator signified a permanent link to the Roman tradition of victory.[119] The word Caesar was merely a cognomen for one branch of the Julian family, yet Augustus transformed Caesar into a new family line that began with him.[119]

Augustus was granted the right to hang the corona civica above his door, the "civic crown" made from oak, and to have laurels drape his doorposts,[118] this crown was usually held above the head of a Roman general during a triumph, with the individual holding the crown charged to continually repeat to the general "memento mori", or "Remember that you are mortal". Additionally, laurel wreaths were important in several state ceremonies, and crowns of laurel were rewarded to champions of athletic, racing, and dramatic contests. Thus, both the laurel and the oak were integral symbols of Roman religion and statecraft; placing them on Augustus' doorposts was tantamount to declaring his home the capital.

However, Augustus renounced flaunting insignia of power such as holding a scepter, wearing a diadem, or wearing the golden crown and purple toga of his predecessor Julius Caesar.[122] If he refused to symbolize his power by donning and bearing these items on his person, the Senate nonetheless awarded him with a golden shield displayed in the meeting hall of the Curia, bearing the inscription virtus, pietas, clementia, iustitia—"valor, piety, clemency, and justice."[118][123]

Second settlement

Portraits of Augustus show the emperor with idealized features

By 23 BC, some of the un-Republican implications were becoming apparent concerning the settlement of 27 BC. Augustus' retention of an annual consulate drew attention to his de facto dominance over the Roman political system, and cut in half the opportunities for others to achieve what was still nominally the preeminent position in the Roman state.[124] Further, he was causing political problems by desiring to have his nephew Marcus Claudius Marcellus follow in his footsteps and eventually assume the Principate in his turn,[note 7] alienating his three greatest supporters – Agrippa, Maecenas, and Livia.[125] Feeling pressure from his core group of adherents, Augustus turned to the Senate for help.

He appointed noted Republican Calpurnius Piso as co-consul in 23 BC, after his choice Aulus Terentius Varro Murena (who had fought against Julius Caesar and supported Cassius and Brutus[126]) was executed in consequence of his involvement in the Marcus Primus affair,[127] with an eye to bolstering his support among the Republicans.

In the late spring Augustus suffered a severe illness, and on his supposed deathbed made arrangements that would ensure the continuation of the Principate in some form,[128] while allaying senators' suspicions of his anti-republicanism.[129][130] Augustus prepared to hand down his signet ring to his favored general Agrippa.[129][130] However, Augustus handed over to his co-consul Piso all of his official documents, an account of public finances, and authority over listed troops in the provinces while Augustus' supposedly favored nephew Marcellus came away empty-handed,[129][130] this was a surprise to many who believed Augustus would have named an heir to his position as an unofficial emperor.[131]

Augustus bestowed only properties and possessions to his designated heirs, as an obvious system of institutionalized imperial inheritance would have provoked resistance and hostility among the republican-minded Romans fearful of monarchy,[108] with regards to the Principate, it was obvious to Augustus that Marcellus was not ready to take on his position;[132] nonetheless, by giving his signet ring to Agrippa, Augustus intended to signal to the legions that Agrippa was to be his successor, and that constitutional procedure notwithstanding, they should continue to obey Agrippa.[133]

Soon after his bout of illness subsided, Augustus gave up his consulship,[130] the only other times Augustus would serve as consul would be in the years 5 and 2 BC,[130][134] both times to introduce his grandsons into public life.[126] This was a clever ploy by Augustus; ceasing to serve as one of two annually elected consuls allowed aspiring senators a better chance to attain the consular position, while allowing Augustus to exercise wider patronage within the senatorial class.[135] Although Augustus had resigned as consul, he desired to retain his consular imperium not just in his provinces but throughout the empire, this desire, as well as the Marcus Primus Affair, led to a second compromise between him and the Senate known as the Second Settlement.[136]

Primary reasons for the Second settlement

The primary reasons for the Second Settlement were as follows. First, after Augustus relinquished the annual consulship, he was no longer in an official position to rule the state, yet his dominant position remained unchanged over his Roman, 'imperial' provinces where he was still a proconsul.[130][137] When he annually held the office of consul, he had the power to intervene with the affairs of the other provincial proconsuls appointed by the Senate throughout the empire, when he deemed necessary.[138] When he relinquished his annual consulship, he legally lost this power because his proconsular powers applied only to his imperial provinces. Augustus wanted to keep this power.

A second problem later arose showing the need for the Second Settlement in what became known as the "Marcus Primus Affair";[139] in late 24 or early 23 BC, charges were brought against Marcus Primus, the former proconsul (governor) of Macedonia, for waging a war without prior approval of the Senate on the Odrysian kingdom of Thrace, whose king was a Roman ally.[140] He was defended by Lucius Lucinius Varro Murena, who told the trial that his client had received specific instructions from Augustus, ordering him to attack the client state.[141] Later, Primus testified that the orders came from the recently deceased Marcellus,[142] such orders, had they been given, would have been considered a breach of the Senate's prerogative under the Constitutional settlement of 27 BC and its aftermath—i.e., before Augustus was granted imperium proconsulare maius—as Macedonia was a Senatorial province under the Senate's jurisdiction, not an imperial province under the authority of Augustus. Such an action would have ripped away the veneer of Republican restoration as promoted by Augustus, and exposed his fraud of merely being the first citizen, a first among equals.[141] Even worse, the involvement of Marcellus provided some measure of proof that Augustus's policy was to have the youth take his place as Princeps, instituting a form of monarchy – accusations that had already played out.[132]

Augustus as Jove, holding a scepter and orb (first half of 1st century AD)

The situation was so serious that Augustus himself appeared at the trial, even though he had not been called as a witness. Under oath, Augustus declared that he gave no such order.[143] Murena disbelieved Augustus's testimony and resented his attempt to subvert the trial by using his auctoritas, he rudely demanded to know why Augustus had turned up to a trial to which he had not been called; Augustus replied that he came in the public interest.[144] Although Primus was found guilty, some jurors voted to acquit, meaning that not everybody believed Augustus's testimony, an insult to the 'August One'.[145]

The Second Constitutional Settlement was completed in part to allay confusion and formalize Augustus' legal authority to intervene in Senatorial provinces, the Senate granted Augustus a form of general imperium proconsulare, or proconsular imperium (power) that applied throughout the empire, not solely to his provinces. Moreover, the Senate augmented Augustus' proconsular imperium into imperium proconsulare maius, or proconsular imperium applicable throughout the empire that was more (maius) or greater than that held by the other proconsuls, this in effect gave Augustus constitutional power superior to all other proconsuls in the empire.[136] Augustus stayed in Rome during the renewal process and provided veterans with lavish donations to gain their support, thereby ensuring that his status of proconsular imperium maius was renewed in 13 BC.[134]

Additional powers

During the second settlement, Augustus was also granted the power of a tribune (tribunicia potestas) for life, though not the official title of tribune,[136] for some years, Augustus had been awarded tribunicia sacrosanctitas, the immunity given to a Tribune of the Plebs. Now he decided to assume the full powers of the magistracy, renewed annually, in perpetuity. Legally, it was closed to patricians, a status that Augustus had acquired some years earlier when adopted by Julius Caesar,[135] this power allowed him to convene the Senate and people at will and lay business before them, to veto the actions of either the Assembly or the Senate, to preside over elections, and to speak first at any meeting.[134][146] Also included in Augustus' tribunician authority were powers usually reserved for the Roman censor; these included the right to supervise public morals and scrutinize laws to ensure that they were in the public interest, as well as the ability to hold a census and determine the membership of the Senate.[147]

With the powers of a censor, Augustus appealed to virtues of Roman patriotism by banning all attire but the classic toga while entering the Forum.[148] There was no precedent within the Roman system for combining the powers of the tribune and the censor into a single position, nor was Augustus ever elected to the office of censor.[149] Julius Caesar had been granted similar powers, wherein he was charged with supervising the morals of the state. However, this position did not extend to the censor's ability to hold a census and determine the Senate's roster, the office of the tribunus plebis began to lose its prestige due to Augustus' amassing of tribunal powers, so he revived its importance by making it a mandatory appointment for any plebeian desiring the praetorship.[150]

Augustus was granted sole imperium within the city of Rome itself, in addition to being granted proconsular imperium maius and tribunician authority for life. Traditionally, proconsuls (Roman province governors) lost their proconsular "imperium" when they crossed the Pomerium – the sacred boundary of Rome – and entered the city; in these situations, Augustus would have power as part of his tribunician authority but his constitutional imperium within the Pomerium would be less than that of a serving consul. That would mean that, when he was in the city, he might not be the constitutional magistrate with the most authority. Thanks to his prestige or auctoritas, his wishes would usually be obeyed, but there might be some difficulty. To fill this power vacuum, the Senate voted that Augustus's imperium proconsulare maius (superior proconsular power) should not lapse when he was inside the city walls. All armed forces in the city had formerly been under the control of the urban praetors and consuls, but this situation now placed them under the sole authority of Augustus.[151]

In addition, the credit was given to Augustus for each subsequent Roman military victory after this time, because the majority of Rome's armies were stationed in imperial provinces commanded by Augustus through the legatus who were deputies of the princeps in the provinces.[152] Moreover, if a battle was fought in a Senatorial province, Augustus' proconsular imperium maius allowed him to take command of (or credit for) any major military victory, this meant that Augustus was the only individual able to receive a triumph, a tradition that began with Romulus, Rome's first King and first triumphant general.[152]Lucius Cornelius Balbus was the last man outside Augustus' family to receive this award, in 19 BC.[152] (Balbus was the nephew of Julius Caesar's great agent, who was governor of Africa and conqueror of the Garamantes.) Tiberius, Augustus' eldest son by marriage to Livia, was the only other general to receive a triumph—for victories in Germania in 7 BC.[153]

Conspiracy

Many of the political subtleties of the Second Settlement seem to have evaded the comprehension of the Plebeian class, who were Augustus' greatest supporters and clientele, this caused them to insist upon Augustus' participation in imperial affairs from time to time. Augustus failed to stand for election as consul in 22 BC, and fears arose once again that he was being forced from power by the aristocratic Senate. In 22, 21, and 19 BC, the people rioted in response, and only allowed a single consul to be elected for each of those years, ostensibly to leave the other position open for Augustus.[154] Likewise, there was a food shortage in Rome in 22 BC which sparked panic, while many urban plebs called for Augustus to take on dictatorial powers to personally oversee the crisis.[134] After a theatrical display of refusal before the Senate, Augustus finally accepted authority over Rome's grain supply "by virtue of his proconsular imperium", and ended the crisis almost immediately,[134] it was not until AD 8 that a food crisis of this sort prompted Augustus to establish a praefectus annonae, a permanent prefect who was in charge of procuring food supplies for Rome.[155]

Nevertheless, there were some who were concerned by the expansion of powers granted to Augustus by the Second Settlement, and this came to a head with the apparent conspiracy of Fannius Caepio,[139] some time prior to 1 September 22 BC, a certain Castricius provided Augustus with information about a conspiracy led by Fannius Caepio.[156]Murena was named among the conspirators, the outspoken Consul who defended Primus in the Marcus Primus Affair. The conspirators were tried in absentia with Tiberius acting as prosecutor; the jury found them guilty, but it was not a unanimous verdict.[157] All the accused were sentenced to death for treason and executed as soon as they were captured—without ever giving testimony in their defence.[158] Augustus ensured that the facade of Republican government continued with an effective cover-up of the events.[159]

In 19 BC, the Senate granted Augustus a form of 'general consular imperium', which was probably 'imperium consulare maius', like the proconsular powers that he received in 23 BC. Like his tribune authority, the consular powers were another instance of gaining power from offices that he did not actually hold;[160] in addition, Augustus was allowed to wear the consul's insignia in public and before the Senate,[151] as well as to sit in the symbolic chair between the two consuls and hold the fasces, an emblem of consular authority.[160] This seems to have assuaged the populace; regardless of whether or not Augustus was a consul, the importance was that he both appeared as one before the people and could exercise consular power if necessary. On 6 March 12 BC, after the death of Lepidus, he additionally took up the position of pontifex maximus, the high priest of the college of the Pontiffs, the most important position in Roman religion.[161][162] On 5 February 2 BC, Augustus was also given the title pater patriae, or "father of the country".[163][164]

Stability and staying power

A final reason for the Second Settlement was to give the Principate constitutional stability and staying power in case something happened to Princeps Augustus, his illness of early 23 BC and the Caepio conspiracy showed that the regime's existence hung by the thin thread of the life of one man, Augustus himself, who suffered from several severe and dangerous illnesses throughout his life.[165] If he were to die from natural causes or fall victim to assassination, Rome could be subjected to another round of civil war, the memories of Pharsalus, the Ides of March, the proscriptions, Philippi, and Actium, barely twenty-five years distant, were still vivid in the minds of many citizens. Proconsular imperium was conferred upon Agrippa for five years, similar to Augustus' power, in order to accomplish this constitutional stability, the exact nature of the grant is uncertain but it probably covered Augustus' imperial provinces, east and west, perhaps lacking authority over the provinces of the Senate. That came later, as did the jealously guarded tribunicia potestas.[166]

Augustus' powers were now complete; in fact, he dated his 'reign' from the completion of the Second Settlement, July 1, 23 BC.[167] Almost as importantly, the Principate now had constitutional stability. Later Roman Emperors were generally limited to the powers and titles originally granted to Augustus, though often newly appointed Emperors would decline one or more of the honorifics given to Augustus in order to display humility. Just as often, as their reigns progressed, Emperors would appropriate all of the titles, regardless of whether they had been granted them by the Senate. Later Emperors took to wearing the civic crown, consular insignia, and the purple robes of a Triumphant general (toga picta), which became the imperial insignia well into the Byzantine era.

War and expansion

Augustus chose Imperator ("victorious commander") to be his first name, since he wanted to make an emphatically clear connection between himself and the notion of victory, and consequently became known as Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus[168] By the year 13, Augustus boasted 21 occasions where his troops proclaimed "imperator" as his title after a successful battle.[168] Almost the entire fourth chapter in his publicly released memoirs of achievements known as the Res Gestae was devoted to his military victories and honors.[168]

Augustus also promoted the ideal of a superior Roman civilization with a task of ruling the world (to the extent to which the Romans knew it), a sentiment embodied in words that the contemporary poet Virgil attributes to a legendary ancestor of Augustus: tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento—"Roman, remember by your strength to rule the Earth's peoples!"[148] The impulse for expansionism was apparently prominent among all classes at Rome, and it is accorded divine sanction by Virgil's Jupiter in Book 1 of the Aeneid, where Jupiter promises Rome imperium sine fine, "sovereignty without end".[169]

By the end of his reign, the armies of Augustus had conquered northern Hispania (modern Spain and Portugal)[170] and the Alpine regions of Raetia and Noricum (modern Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Slovenia),[170]Illyricum and Pannonia (modern Albania, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, etc.),[170] and had extended the borders of the Africa Province to the east and south.[170]

Bust of Tiberius, a successful military commander under Augustus before he was designated as his heir and successor

Again, no military effort was needed in 25 BC when Galatia (modern Turkey) was converted to a Roman province shortly after Amyntas of Galatia was killed by an avenging widow of a slain prince from Homonada.[170] The rebellious tribes of Asturias and Cantabria in modern-day Spain were finally quelled in 19 BC, and the territory fell under the provinces of Hispania and Lusitania.[171] This region proved to be a major asset in funding Augustus' future military campaigns, as it was rich in mineral deposits that could be fostered in Roman mining projects, especially the very rich gold deposits at Las Medulas.[171]

Conquering the peoples of the Alps in 16 BC was another important victory for Rome, since it provided a large territorial buffer between the Roman citizens of Italy and Rome's enemies in Germania to the north.[172]Horace dedicated an ode to the victory, while the monument Trophy of Augustus near Monaco was built to honor the occasion.[173] The capture of the Alpine region also served the next offensive in 12 BC, when Tiberius began the offensive against the Pannonian tribes of Illyricum, and his brother Nero Claudius Drusus moved against the Germanic tribes of the eastern Rhineland.[174] Both campaigns were successful, as Drusus' forces reached the Elbe River by 9 BC—though he died shortly after by falling off his horse.[174] It was recorded that the pious Tiberius walked in front of his brother's body all the way back to Rome.[175]

To protect Rome's eastern territories from the Parthian Empire, Augustus relied on the client states of the east to act as territorial buffers and areas that could raise their own troops for defense.[176] To ensure security of the Empire's eastern flank, Augustus stationed a Roman army in Syria, while his skilled stepson Tiberius negotiated with the Parthians as Rome's diplomat to the East.[176] Tiberius was responsible for restoring Tigranes V to the throne of the Kingdom of Armenia.[175]

Parthia had always posed a threat to Rome in the east, but the real battlefront was along the Rhine and Danube rivers,[176] before the final fight with Antony, Octavian's campaigns against the tribes in Dalmatia were the first step in expanding Roman dominions to the Danube.[180] Victory in battle was not always a permanent success, as newly conquered territories were constantly retaken by Rome's enemies in Germania.[176]

A prime example of Roman loss in battle was the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, where three entire legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus were destroyed by Arminius, leader of the Cherusci, an apparent Roman ally.[181] Augustus retaliated by dispatching Tiberius and Drusus to the Rhineland to pacify it, which had some success although the battle of AD 9 brought the end to Roman expansion into Germany.[182] Roman general Germanicus took advantage of a Cherusci civil war between Arminius and Segestes; they defeated Arminius, who fled that battle but was killed later in 21 due to treachery.[183]

Death and succession

The illness of Augustus in 23 BC brought the problem of succession to the forefront of political issues and the public. To ensure stability, he needed to designate an heir to his unique position in Roman society and government, this was to be achieved in small, undramatic, and incremental ways that did not stir senatorial fears of monarchy.[184] If someone was to succeed Augustus' unofficial position of power, he would have to earn it through his own publicly proven merits.[184]

Some Augustan historians argue that indications pointed toward his sister's son Marcellus, who had been quickly married to Augustus' daughter Julia the Elder.[185] Other historians dispute this due to Augustus' will being read aloud to the Senate while he was seriously ill in 23 BC,[186] instead indicating a preference for Marcus Agrippa, who was Augustus' second in charge and arguably the only one of his associates who could have controlled the legions and held the Empire together.[187]

After the death of Marcellus in 23 BC, Augustus married his daughter to Agrippa. This union produced five children, three sons and two daughters: Gaius Caesar, Lucius Caesar, Vipsania Julia, Agrippina the Elder, and Postumus Agrippa, so named because he was born after Marcus Agrippa died. Shortly after the Second Settlement, Agrippa was granted a five-year term of administering the eastern half of the Empire with the imperium of a proconsul and the same tribunicia potestas granted to Augustus (although not trumping Augustus' authority), his seat of governance stationed at Samos in the eastern Aegean.[187][188] This granting of power showed Augustus' favor for Agrippa, but it was also a measure to please members of his Caesarian party by allowing one of their members to share a considerable amount of power with him.[188]

Augustus' intent became apparent to make Gaius and Lucius Caesar his heirs when he adopted them as his own children,[189] he took the consulship in 5 and 2 BC so that he could personally usher them into their political careers,[190] and they were nominated for the consulships of AD 1 and 4.[191] Augustus also showed favor to his stepsons, Livia's children from her first marriage Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus (henceforth referred to as Drusus) and Tiberius Claudius (henceforth Tiberius), granting them military commands and public office, though seeming to favor Drusus. After Agrippa died in 12 BC, Tiberius was ordered to divorce his own wife Vipsania Agrippina and marry Agrippa's widow, Augustus' daughter Julia—as soon as a period of mourning for Agrippa had ended.[192] Drusus' marriage to Antonia Minor was considered an unbreakable affair, whereas Vipsania was "only" the daughter of the late Agrippa from his first marriage.[192]

Tiberius shared in Augustus' tribune powers as of 6 BC, but shortly thereafter went into retirement, reportedly wanting no further role in politics while he exiled himself to Rhodes.[153][193] No specific reason is known for his departure, though it could have been a combination of reasons, including a failing marriage with Julia,[153][193] as well as a sense of envy and exclusion over Augustus' apparent favouring of his young grandchildren-turned-sons Gaius and Lucius. (Gaius and Lucius joined the college of priests at an early age, were presented to spectators in a more favorable light, and were introduced to the army in Gaul.)[194][195]

After the early deaths of both Lucius and Gaius in AD 2 and 4 respectively, and the earlier death of his brother Drusus (9 BC), Tiberius was recalled to Rome in June AD 4, where he was adopted by Augustus on the condition that he, in turn, adopt his nephew Germanicus.[196] This continued the tradition of presenting at least two generations of heirs;[192] in that year, Tiberius was also granted the powers of a tribune and proconsul, emissaries from foreign kings had to pay their respects to him, and by AD 13 was awarded with his second triumph and equal level of imperium with that of Augustus.[197]

The only other possible claimant as heir was Postumus Agrippa, who had been exiled by Augustus in AD 7, his banishment made permanent by senatorial decree, and Augustus officially disowned him,[198] he certainly fell out of Augustus' favor as an heir; the historian Erich S. Gruen notes various contemporary sources that state Postumus Agrippa was a "vulgar young man, brutal and brutish, and of depraved character".[198] Postumus Agrippa was murdered at his place of exile either shortly before or after the death of Augustus.

On 19 August AD 14, Augustus died while visiting Nola where his father had died. Both Tacitus and Cassius Dio wrote that Livia was rumored to have brought about Augustus' death by poisoning fresh figs,[199][200] this element features in many modern works of historical fiction pertaining to Augustus' life, but some historians view it as likely to have been a salacious fabrication made by those who had favoured Postumus as heir, or other of Tiberius' political enemies. Livia had long been the target of similar rumors of poisoning on the behalf of her son, most or all of which are unlikely to have been true.[201]

Alternatively, it is possible that Livia did supply a poisoned fig (she did cultivate a variety of fig named for her that Augustus is said to have enjoyed), but did so as a means of assisted suicide rather than murder. Augustus' health had been in decline in the months immediately before his death, and he had made significant preparations for a smooth transition in power, having at last reluctantly settled on Tiberius as his choice of heir,[202] it is likely that Augustus was not expected to return alive from Nola, but it seems that his health improved once there; it has therefore been speculated that Augustus and Livia conspired to end his life at the anticipated time, having committed all political process to accepting Tiberius, in order to not endanger that transition.[201]

Augustus' famous last words were, "Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit"—referring to the play-acting and regal authority that he had put on as emperor. Publicly, though, his last words were, "Behold, I found Rome of clay, and leave her to you of marble." An enormous funerary procession of mourners traveled with Augustus' body from Nola to Rome, and on the day of his burial all public and private businesses closed for the day.[202] Tiberius and his son Drusus delivered the eulogy while standing atop two rostra.[203] Augustus' body was coffin-bound and cremated on a pyre close to his mausoleum, it was proclaimed that Augustus joined the company of the gods as a member of the Roman pantheon.[203] The mausoleum was despoiled by the Goths in 410 during the Sack of Rome, and his ashes were scattered.

Historian D. C. A. Shotter states that Augustus' policy of favoring the Julian family line over the Claudian might have afforded Tiberius sufficient cause to show open disdain for Augustus after the latter's death; instead, Tiberius was always quick to rebuke those who criticized Augustus.[204] Shotter suggests that Augustus' deification obliged Tiberius to suppress any open resentment that he might have harbored, coupled with Tiberius' "extremely conservative" attitude towards religion.[205]

Also, historian R. Shaw-Smith points to letters of Augustus to Tiberius which display affection towards Tiberius and high regard for his military merits.[206] Shotter states that Tiberius focused his anger and criticism on Gaius Asinius Gallus (for marrying Vipsania after Augustus forced Tiberius to divorce her), as well as toward the two young Caesars, Gaius and Lucius—instead of Augustus, the real architect of his divorce and imperial demotion.[205]

Augustus' reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted, in one form or another, for nearly fifteen hundred years through the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire and until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Both his adoptive surname, Caesar, and his title Augustus became the permanent titles of the rulers of the Roman Empire for fourteen centuries after his death, in use both at Old Rome and at New Rome. In many languages, Caesar became the word for Emperor, as in the German Kaiser and in the Bulgarian and subsequently Russian Tsar (sometimes Csar or Czar). The cult of Divus Augustus continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in 391 by Theodosius I. Consequently, there are many excellent statues and busts of the first emperor, he had composed an account of his achievements, the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, to be inscribed in bronze in front of his mausoleum.[208] Copies of the text were inscribed throughout the Empire upon his death,[209] the inscriptions in Latin featured translations in Greek beside it, and were inscribed on many public edifices, such as the temple in Ankara dubbed the Monumentum Ancyranum, called the "queen of inscriptions" by historian Theodor Mommsen.[210]

There are a few known written works by Augustus that have survived such as his poems Sicily, Epiphanus, and Ajax, an autobiography of 13 books, a philosophical treatise, and his written rebuttal to Brutus' Eulogy of Cato.[211] Historians are able to analyze existing letters penned by Augustus to others for additional facts or clues about his personal life.[206][212]

Many consider Augustus to be Rome's greatest emperor; his policies certainly extended the Empire's life span and initiated the celebrated Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. The Roman Senate wished subsequent emperors to "be more fortunate than Augustus and better than Trajan". Augustus was intelligent, decisive, and a shrewd politician, but he was not perhaps as charismatic as Julius Caesar, and was influenced on occasion by his third wife, Livia (sometimes for the worse). Nevertheless, his legacy proved more enduring, the city of Rome was utterly transformed under Augustus, with Rome's first institutionalized police force, fire fighting force, and the establishment of the municipal prefect as a permanent office.[213] The police force was divided into cohorts of 500 men each, while the units of firemen ranged from 500 to 1,000 men each, with 7 units assigned to 14 divided city sectors.[213]

A praefectus vigilum, or "Prefect of the Watch" was put in charge of the vigiles, Rome's fire brigade and police,[214] with Rome's civil wars at an end, Augustus was also able to create a standing army for the Roman Empire, fixed at a size of 28 legions of about 170,000 soldiers.[215] This was supported by numerous auxiliary units of 500 soldiers each, often recruited from recently conquered areas.[216]

With his finances securing the maintenance of roads throughout Italy, Augustus also installed an official courier system of relay stations overseen by a military officer known as the praefectus vehiculorum.[217] Besides the advent of swifter communication among Italian polities, his extensive building of roads throughout Italy also allowed Rome's armies to march swiftly and at an unprecedented pace across the country;[218] in the year 6 Augustus established the aerarium militare, donating 170 million sesterces to the new military treasury that provided for both active and retired soldiers.[219]

One of the most enduring institutions of Augustus was the establishment of the Praetorian Guard in 27 BC, originally a personal bodyguard unit on the battlefield that evolved into an imperial guard as well as an important political force in Rome.[220] They had the power to intimidate the Senate, install new emperors, and depose ones they disliked; the last emperor they served was Maxentius, as it was Constantine I who disbanded them in the early 4th century and destroyed their barracks, the Castra Praetoria.[221]

Although the most powerful individual in the Roman Empire, Augustus wished to embody the spirit of Republican virtue and norms, he also wanted to relate to and connect with the concerns of the plebs and lay people. He achieved this through various means of generosity and a cutting back of lavish excess; in the year 29 BC, Augustus paid 400 sesterces each to 250,000 citizens, 1,000 sesterces each to 120,000 veterans in the colonies, and spent 700 million sesterces in purchasing land for his soldiers to settle upon.[222] He also restored 82 different temples to display his care for the Roman pantheon of deities;[222] in 28 BC, he melted down 80 silver statues erected in his likeness and in honor of him, an attempt of his to appear frugal and modest.[222]

The longevity of Augustus' reign and its legacy to the Roman world should not be overlooked as a key factor in its success, as Tacitus wrote, the younger generations alive in AD 14 had never known any form of government other than the Principate.[223] Had Augustus died earlier (in 23 BC, for instance), matters might have turned out differently. The attrition of the civil wars on the old Republican oligarchy and the longevity of Augustus, therefore, must be seen as major contributing factors in the transformation of the Roman state into a de facto monarchy in these years. Augustus' own experience, his patience, his tact, and his political acumen also played their parts, he directed the future of the Empire down many lasting paths, from the existence of a standing professional army stationed at or near the frontiers, to the dynastic principle so often employed in the imperial succession, to the embellishment of the capital at the emperor's expense. Augustus' ultimate legacy was the peace and prosperity the Empire enjoyed for the next two centuries under the system he initiated, his memory was enshrined in the political ethos of the Imperial age as a paradigm of the good emperor. Every Emperor of Rome adopted his name, Caesar Augustus, which gradually lost its character as a name and eventually became a title,[203] the Augustan era poets Virgil and Horace praised Augustus as a defender of Rome, an upholder of moral justice, and an individual who bore the brunt of responsibility in maintaining the empire.[224]

However, for his rule of Rome and establishing the principate, Augustus has also been subjected to criticism throughout the ages, the contemporary Roman jurist Marcus Antistius Labeo (d. AD 10/11), fond of the days of pre-Augustan republican liberty in which he had been born, openly criticized the Augustan regime;[225] in the beginning of his Annals, the Roman historian Tacitus (c. 56–c.117) wrote that Augustus had cunningly subverted Republican Rome into a position of slavery.[225] He continued to say that, with Augustus' death and swearing of loyalty to Tiberius, the people of Rome simply traded one slaveholder for another.[225] Tacitus, however, records two contradictory but common views of Augustus:

Intelligent people praised or criticized him in varying ways. One opinion was as follows. Filial duty and a national emergency, in which there was no place for law-abiding conduct, had driven him to civil war—and this can neither be initiated nor maintained by decent methods, he had made many concessions to Anthony and to Lepidus for the sake of vengeance on his father's murderers. When Lepidus grew old and lazy, and Anthony's self-indulgence got the better of him, the only possible cure for the distracted country had been government by one man. However, Augustus had put the state in order not by making himself king or dictator, but by creating the Principate, the Empire's frontiers were on the ocean, or distant rivers. Armies, provinces, fleets, the whole system was interrelated. Roman citizens were protected by the law. Provincials were decently treated. Rome itself had been lavishly beautified. Force had been sparingly used—merely to preserve peace for the majority.[226]

According to the second opposing opinion:

filial duty and national crisis had been merely pretexts. In actual fact, the motive of Octavian, the future Augustus, was lust for power ... There had certainly been peace, but it was a blood-stained peace of disasters and assassinations.[227]

In a recent biography on Augustus, Anthony Everitt asserts that through the centuries, judgments on Augustus' reign have oscillated between these two extremes but stresses that:

Opposites do not have to be mutually exclusive, and we are not obliged to choose one or the other, the story of his career shows that Augustus was indeed ruthless, cruel, and ambitious for himself. This was only in part a personal trait, for upper-class Romans were educated to compete with one another and to excel. However, he combined an overriding concern for his personal interests with a deep-seated patriotism, based on a nostalgia of Rome's antique virtues; in his capacity as princeps, selfishness and selflessness coexisted in his mind. While fighting for dominance, he paid little attention to legality or to the normal civilities of political life, he was devious, untrustworthy, and bloodthirsty. But once he had established his authority, he governed efficiently and justly, generally allowed freedom of speech, and promoted the rule of law, he was immensely hardworking and tried as hard as any democratic parliamentarian to treat his senatorial colleagues with respect and sensitivity. He suffered from no delusions of grandeur.[228]

Tacitus was of the belief that Nerva (r. 96–98) successfully "mingled two formerly alien ideas, principate and liberty".[229] The 3rd-century historian Cassius Dio acknowledged Augustus as a benign, moderate ruler, yet like most other historians after the death of Augustus, Dio viewed Augustus as an autocrat,[225] the poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (AD 39–65) was of the opinion that Caesar's victory over Pompey and the fall of Cato the Younger (95 BC–46 BC) marked the end of traditional liberty in Rome; historian Chester G. Starr, Jr. writes of his avoidance of criticizing Augustus, "perhaps Augustus was too sacred a figure to accuse directly."[229]

The Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), in his Discourse on the Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome, criticized Augustus for installing tyranny over Rome, and likened what he believed Great Britain's virtuous constitutional monarchy to Rome's moral Republic of the 2nd century BC.[230] In his criticism of Augustus, the admiral and historian Thomas Gordon (1658–1741) compared Augustus to the puritanical tyrant Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658).[230] Thomas Gordon and the French political philosopher Montesquieu (1689–1755) both remarked that Augustus was a coward in battle;[231] in his Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, the Scottish scholar Thomas Blackwell (1701–1757) deemed Augustus a Machiavellian ruler, "a bloodthirsty vindicative usurper", "wicked and worthless", "a mean spirit", and a "tyrant".[231]

Revenue reforms

Augustus' public revenue reforms had a great impact on the subsequent success of the Empire. Augustus brought a far greater portion of the Empire's expanded land base under consistent, direct taxation from Rome, instead of exacting varying, intermittent, and somewhat arbitrary tributes from each local province as Augustus' predecessors had done,[232] this reform greatly increased Rome's net revenue from its territorial acquisitions, stabilized its flow, and regularized the financial relationship between Rome and the provinces, rather than provoking fresh resentments with each new arbitrary exaction of tribute.[232]

The measures of taxation in the reign of Augustus were determined by population census, with fixed quotas for each province.[233] Citizens of Rome and Italy paid indirect taxes, while direct taxes were exacted from the provinces.[233] Indirect taxes included a 4% tax on the price of slaves, a 1% tax on goods sold at auction, and a 5% tax on the inheritance of estates valued at over 100,000 sesterces by persons other than the next of kin.[233]

An equally important reform was the abolition of private tax farming, which was replaced by salaried civil service tax collectors. Private contractors who collected taxes for the State were the norm in the Republican era, some of them were powerful enough to influence the number of votes for men running for offices in Rome.[232] These tax farmers called publicans were infamous for their depredations, great private wealth, and the right to tax local areas.[232]

Rome's revenue equaled the amount of the successful bids to farm the taxes, the tax farmers' profits consisted of additional amounts they could forcibly wring from the populace with Rome's blessing or turning a blind eye. Lack of effective supervision, combined with tax farmers' desire to maximize their profits, produced a system of arbitrary exactions regarded quite rightly as barbarously cruel to taxpayers, unfair, and very harmful to investment and the economy.

1st century coin of the Himyarite Kingdom, southern coast of the Arabian peninsula. This is also an imitation of a coin of Augustus.

The use of Egypt's immense land rents to finance the Empire's operations resulted from Augustus' conquest of Egypt and the shift to a Roman form of government,[234] as it was effectively considered Augustus' private property rather than a province of the Empire, it became part of each succeeding emperor's patrimonium.[235] Instead of a legate or proconsul, Augustus installed a prefect from the equestrian class to administer Egypt and maintain its lucrative seaports; this position became the highest political achievement for any equestrian besides becoming Prefect of the Praetorian Guard.[236] The highly productive agricultural land of Egypt yielded enormous revenues that were available to Augustus and his successors to pay for public works and military expeditions,[234] as well as bread and circuses for the population of Rome.

Month of August

The month of August (Latin: Augustus) is named after Augustus; until his time it was called Sextilis (named so because it had been the sixth month of the original Roman calendar and the Latin word for six is sex). Commonly repeated lore has it that August has 31 days because Augustus wanted his month to match the length of Julius Caesar's July, but this is an invention of the 13th century scholar Johannes de Sacrobosco. Sextilis in fact had 31 days before it was renamed, and it was not chosen for its length (see Julian calendar). According to a senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, Sextilis was renamed to honor Augustus because several of the most significant events in his rise to power, culminating in the fall of Alexandria, fell in that month.[238]

Building projects

Close up on the sculpted detail of the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace), 13 BC to 9 BC

On his deathbed, Augustus boasted "I found a Rome of bricks; I leave to you one of marble." Although there is some truth in the literal meaning of this, Cassius Dio asserts that it was a metaphor for the Empire's strength.[239]Marble could be found in buildings of Rome before Augustus, but it was not extensively used as a building material until the reign of Augustus.[240]

Although this did not apply to the Subura slums, which were still as rickety and fire-prone as ever, he did leave a mark on the monumental topography of the centre and of the Campus Martius, with the Ara Pacis (Altar of Peace) and monumental sundial, whose central gnomon was an obelisk taken from Egypt.[241] The relief sculptures decorating the Ara Pacis visually augmented the written record of Augustus' triumphs in the Res Gestae,[242] its reliefs depicted the imperial pageants of the praetorians, the Vestals, and the citizenry of Rome.[242]

After the death of Agrippa in 12 BC, a solution had to be found in maintaining Rome's water supply system. This came about because it was overseen by Agrippa when he served as aedile, and was even funded by him afterwards when he was a private citizen paying at his own expense;[213] in that year, Augustus arranged a system where the Senate designated three of its members as prime commissioners in charge of the water supply and to ensure that Rome's aqueducts did not fall into disrepair.[213]

In the late Augustan era, the commission of five senators called the curatores locorum publicorum iudicandorum (translated as "Supervisors of Public Property") was put in charge of maintaining public buildings and temples of the state cult.[213] Augustus created the senatorial group of the curatores viarum (translated as "Supervisors for Roads") for the upkeep of roads; this senatorial commission worked with local officials and contractors to organize regular repairs.[217]

The Corinthian order of architectural style originating from ancient Greece was the dominant architectural style in the age of Augustus and the imperial phase of Rome.[240] Suetonius once commented that Rome was unworthy of its status as an imperial capital, yet Augustus and Agrippa set out to dismantle this sentiment by transforming the appearance of Rome upon the classical Greek model.[240]

Physical appearance and official images

His biographer Suetonius, writing about a century after Augustus' death, described his appearance as: "... unusually handsome and exceedingly graceful at all periods of his life, though he cared nothing for personal adornment. He was so far from being particular about the dressing of his hair, that he would have several barbers working in a hurry at the same time, and as for his beard he now had it clipped and now shaved, while at the very same time he would either be reading or writing something ... He had clear, bright eyes ... His teeth were wide apart, small, and ill-kept; his hair was slightly curly and inclined to golden; his eyebrows met. His ears were of moderate size, and his nose projected a little at the top and then bent ever so slightly inward, his complexion was between dark and fair. He was short of stature, although Julius Marathus, his freedman and keeper of his records, says that he was five feet and nine inches (just under 5 ft. 7 in., or 1.70 meters, in modern height measurements), but this was concealed by the fine proportion and symmetry of his figure, and was noticeable only by comparison with some taller person standing beside him...",[245] adding that "his shoes [were] somewhat high-soled, to make him look taller than he really was".[246] Scientific analysis of traces of paint found in his official statues show that he most likely had light brown hair and eyes (his hair and eyes were depicted as the same color).[247]

His official images were very tightly controlled and idealized, drawing from a tradition of Hellenistic royal portraiture rather than the tradition of realism in Roman portraiture, he first appeared on coins at the age of 19, and from about 29 BC "the explosion in the number of Augustan portraits attests a concerted propaganda campaign aimed at dominating all aspects of civil, religious, economic and military life with Augustus' person."[248] The early images did indeed depict a young man, but although there were gradual changes his images remained youthful until he died in his seventies, by which time they had "a distanced air of ageless majesty",[249] among the best known of many surviving portraits are the Augustus of Prima Porta, the image on the Ara Pacis, and the Via Labicana Augustus, which shows him as a priest. Several cameo portraits include the Blacas Cameo and Gemma Augustea.

^The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian after 45 BC. Due to departures from Julius Caesar's intentions, Augustus finished restoring the Julian calendar in March AD 4, and the correspondence between the proleptic Julian calendar and the calendar observed in Rome is uncertain before 8 BC. (Blackburn & Holford-Strevens 2003: 670–1)

^As part of the Triumvirate, Octavian ruled the Western provinces, Antony ruled the Eastern provinces, and Lepidus ruled Africa.

^His daughter Julia had died in 54 BC.; his son Caesarion by Cleopatra was not recognized by Roman law and was not mentioned in his will.[19]

^If the testimony of Marcus Primus can be believed, where during his trial for illegally launching a war in Thrace, he asserted that he acted on the orders of Marcellus and Augustus – see Southern, p. 108 and Eck (2003), p. 55

^Bowersock (1990), p. 380. The date is provided by inscribed calendars; see also Augustus, Res Gestae10.2. Dio 27.2 reports this under 13 BC, probably as the year in which Lepidus died (Bowersock (1990), p. 383).

Cited in text

Ando, Clifford, Imperial ideology and provincial loyalty in the Roman Empire, University of California Press, 2000.

Bivar, A. D. H. (1983). "The Political History of Iran Under the Arsacids", in The Cambridge History of Iran (Vol 3:1), 21–99. Edited by Ehsan Yarshater. London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, and Sydney: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-0-521-20092-9.

Blackburn, Bonnie and Holford-Strevens, Leofranc. (1999). The Oxford Companion to the Year. Oxford University Press. Reprinted with corrections 2003.

Bourne, Ella. "Augustus as a Letter-Writer", Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association (Volume 49, 1918): 53–66.

Eder, Walter. (2005). "Augustus and the Power of Tradition", in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus (Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World), ed. Karl Galinsky, 13–32. Cambridge, MA; New York: Cambridge University Press (hardcover, ISBN978-0-521-80796-8; paperback, ISBN978-0-521-00393-3).

Everitt, Anthony (2006) Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor. Random House Books. ISBN1-4000-6128-8.

Gruen, Erich S. (2005). "Augustus and the Making of the Principate", in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus (Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World), ed. Karl Galinsky, 33–51. Cambridge, MA; New York: Cambridge University Press (hardcover, ISBN978-0-521-80796-8; paperback, ISBN978-0-521-00393-3).

Zanker, Paul. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1989 (hardcover, ISBN978-0-472-10101-6); 1990 (paperback, ISBN978-0-472-08124-0).

1.
Augustus of Prima Porta
–
Augustus of Prima Porta is a 2. 03m high marble statue of Augustus Caesar which was discovered on April 20,1863 in the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta, near Rome. Augustus Caesars wife Livia Drusilla, now known as Julia Augusta, the sculpture is now displayed in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican Museums. The dating of the Prima Porta piece is widely contested and it is thought to be a copy of a bronze original. The sculptor may have been Greek and this original, along with other high honors, was vowed to Augustus by the Senate in 20 BC and set up in a public place. The marble statue, however, was found in his wife and this would explain the divine references to Augustus in the piece, notably his being barefoot, the standard representation of gods or heroes in classical iconography. Under this hypothesis, the dating of the statue can be placed during the first years of Tiberius reign as emperor, the statue is an idealized image of Augustus based on the 5th-century BC statue of the Spear Bearer or Doryphoros by the sculptor Polykleitos. Compare the Orator in the Museo Archeologico in Florence, the Doryphoross contrapposto stance, creating diagonals between tense and relaxed limbs, a feature typical of classical sculpture, is adapted here. The misidentification of the Doryphoros in the Roman period as representing the warrior Achilles made the model all the more appropriate for this image, despite the Republican influence in the portrait head, the overall style is closer to Hellenistic idealisation than to the realism of Roman portraiture. It is almost certain that the Augustus was originally painted, but so few remain today that historians have had to fall back on old watercolors. Vincenz Brinkmann of Munich researched the use of color on ancient sculpture in the 1980s using ultraviolet rays to find traces of color. Today, the Vatican Museums have produced a copy of the statue so as to paint it in the original colours. However, an art historian of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, Fabio Barry, has criticized this reconstitution as unsubtle, there are many notable differences between the original Prima Porta of Augustus and the painted recreation. However, due to the disagreement on the statues pigmentation there is little information or exploration on the usage of these colors. Another copy was painted with different color scheme for the Tarraco Viva 2014 Festival, the writings of second-century polymath, Lucian, provide a good example of how color functioned for a work of that time, I Fear I stand in the way of her most important feature. The rest of the body let Apelles represent, not too white but diffused with blood. The quote continues to state that a statue of the time is unfinished without its chora—skin—or layer, the specific implications of each color chosen for the Prima Porta is unknown, assumedly red for royalty. The haircut is made up of divided, thick strands of hair, from the left two strands stray onto the forehead, and from the right three strands, a hairstyle first found on this statue. This hairstyle also marks this out as Augustus from comparison with his portrait on his coinage

2.
Roman emperor
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The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman Empire during the imperial period. The emperors used a variety of different titles throughout history, often when a given Roman is described as becoming emperor in English, it reflects his taking of the title Augustus or Caesar. Another title often used was imperator, originally a military honorific, early Emperors also used the title princeps. Emperors frequently amassed republican titles, notably Princeps Senatus, Consul, the first emperors reigned alone, later emperors would sometimes rule with co-Emperors and divide administration of the Empire between them. The Romans considered the office of emperor to be distinct from that of a king, the first emperor, Augustus, resolutely refused recognition as a monarch. Although Augustus could claim that his power was authentically republican, his successor, Tiberius, nonetheless, for the first three hundred years of Roman Emperors, from Augustus until Diocletian, a great effort was made to emphasize that the Emperors were the leaders of a Republic. Elements of the Republican institutional framework were preserved until the end of the Western Empire. The Eastern emperors ultimately adopted the title of Basileus, which had meant king in Greek, but became a title reserved solely for the Roman emperor, other kings were then referred to as rēgas. In addition to their office, some emperors were given divine status after death. The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the late 5th century, Romulus Augustulus is often considered to be the last emperor of the west after his forced abdication in 476, although Julius Nepos maintained a claim to the title until his death in 480. Constantine XI was the last Byzantine Roman emperor in Constantinople, dying in the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, a Byzantine group of claimant Roman Emperors existed in the Empire of Trebizond until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1461. In western Europe the title of Roman Emperor was revived by Germanic rulers, the Holy Roman Emperors, in 800, at the end of the Roman Republic no new, and certainly no single, title indicated the individual who held supreme power. Insofar as emperor could be seen as the English translation of imperator, then Julius Caesar had been an emperor, however, Julius Caesar, unlike those after him, did so without the Senates vote and approval. Julius Caesar held the Republican offices of four times and dictator five times, was appointed dictator in perpetuity in 45 BC and had been pontifex maximus for a long period. He gained these positions by senatorial consent, by the time of his assassination, he was the most powerful man in the Roman world. In his will, Caesar appointed his adopted son Octavian as his heir, a decade after Caesars death, Octavians victory over his erstwhile ally Mark Antony at Actium put an end to any effective opposition and confirmed Octavians supremacy. His restoration of powers to the Senate and the people of Rome was a demonstration of his auctoritas, some later historians such as Tacitus would say that even at Augustus death, the true restoration of the Republic might have been possible. Instead, Augustus actively prepared his adopted son Tiberius to be his successor, the Senate disputed the issue but eventually confirmed Tiberius as princeps

3.
Julius Caesar
–
Gaius Julius Caesar, known as Julius Caesar, was a Roman politician, general, and notable author of Latin prose. He played a role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic. In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey formed an alliance that dominated Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to power as Populares were opposed by the Optimates within the Roman Senate. Caesars victories in the Gallic Wars, completed by 51 BC, extended Romes territory to the English Channel, Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both the Channel and the Rhine, when he built a bridge across the Rhine and crossed the Channel to invade Britain. These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse the standing of Pompey, with the Gallic Wars concluded, the Senate ordered Caesar to step down from his military command and return to Rome. Caesar refused the order, and instead marked his defiance in 49 BC by crossing the Rubicon with the 13th Legion, leaving his province, Civil war resulted, and Caesars victory in the war put him in an unrivalled position of power and influence. After assuming control of government, Caesar began a programme of social and governmental reforms and he centralised the bureaucracy of the Republic and was eventually proclaimed dictator in perpetuity, giving him additional authority. But the underlying political conflicts had not been resolved, and on the Ides of March 44 BC, a new series of civil wars broke out, and the constitutional government of the Republic was never fully restored. Caesars adopted heir Octavian, later known as Augustus, rose to power after defeating his opponents in the civil war. Octavian set about solidifying his power, and the era of the Roman Empire began, much of Caesars life is known from his own accounts of his military campaigns, and from other contemporary sources, mainly the letters and speeches of Cicero and the historical writings of Sallust. The later biographies of Caesar by Suetonius and Plutarch are also major sources, Caesar is considered by many historians to be one of the greatest military commanders in history. Caesar was born into a family, the gens Julia. The cognomen Caesar originated, according to Pliny the Elder, with an ancestor who was born by Caesarean section. The Historia Augusta suggests three alternative explanations, that the first Caesar had a head of hair, that he had bright grey eyes. Caesar issued coins featuring images of elephants, suggesting that he favored this interpretation of his name, despite their ancient pedigree, the Julii Caesares were not especially politically influential, although they had enjoyed some revival of their political fortunes in the early 1st century BC. Caesars father, also called Gaius Julius Caesar, governed the province of Asia and his mother, Aurelia Cotta, came from an influential family. Little is recorded of Caesars childhood, in 85 BC, Caesars father died suddenly, so Caesar was the head of the family at 16

4.
Roman dictator
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A dictator was a magistrate of the Roman Republic, entrusted with the full authority of the state to deal with a military emergency or to undertake a specific duty. All other magistrates were subordinate to his imperium, and the right of the tribunes to veto his actions or of the people to appeal from them was extremely limited. The office was abolished after the death of Caesar. With the abolition of the Roman monarchy in 509 BC, the imperium, or executive power, in time they would come to be known as consuls, although probably not until the creation of a third, junior praetor in 367 BC. Neither consul was superior to the other, and the decisions of one could be appealed to the other, according to most authorities, the first dictator was Titus Lartius, who appointed Spurius Cassius his magister equitum. His lieutenant, the magister equitum, was the master of the horse, however, the use of dictator to refer to the magister populi seems to have been widespread from a very early period. The appointment of a dictator involved three steps, first, the Senate would issue a decree known as a senatus consultum, technically, a senatus consultum was advisory, and did not have the force of law, but in practice it was nearly always followed. Either consul could nominate a dictator, if both consuls were available, the dictator was chosen by agreement, if they could not agree, the consuls would draw lots for the responsibility. Finally, the Comitia Curiata would be called upon to confer imperium on the dictator through the passage of a law known as a lex de imperio. A dictator could be nominated for different reasons, or causa and these reasons could be combined, but are not always recorded or clearly stated in ancient authorities, and must instead be inferred. In the earlier period it was customary to nominate someone whom the consul considered the best available military commander, often this was a former consul, however, from 360 BC onward, the dictators were usually consulares. Normally there was only one dictator at a time, although a new dictator could be appointed following the resignation of another. A dictator could be compelled to resign his office without accomplishing his task or serving out his term if there were found to be a fault in the auspices under which he had been nominated. Like other curule magistrates, the dictator was entitled to the toga praetexta, in a notable exception to the Roman reluctance to reconstitute the symbols of the kings, the lictors of the dictator never removed the axes from their fasces, even within the pomerium. Symbolizing their power over life and death, the axes of a dictators lictors set him apart from all other magistrates, in an extraordinary sign of deference, the lictors of other magistrates could not bear fasces at all when appearing before the dictator. As the kings had been accustomed to appear on horseback, this right was forbidden to the dictator, unless he first received permission from the comitia. In addition to holding a command and carrying out the actions decreed by the Senate. The full extent of the power was considerable, but not unlimited

5.
Tiberius
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Tiberius was a Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Born Tiberius Claudius Nero, a Claudian, Tiberius was the son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and his mother divorced Nero and married Octavian, later known as Augustus, in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian. Tiberius would later marry Augustus daughter, Julia the Elder, and even later be adopted by Augustus, by which act he officially became a Julian, bearing the name Tiberius Julius Caesar. The subsequent emperors after Tiberius would continue this blended dynasty of both families for the thirty years, historians have named it the Julio-Claudian dynasty. In relations to the emperors of this dynasty, Tiberius was the stepson of Augustus, grand-uncle of Caligula, paternal uncle of Claudius. Tiberius was one of Romes greatest generals, his conquest of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and temporarily, parts of Germania, laid the foundations for the northern frontier. But he came to be remembered as a dark, reclusive, and sombre ruler who never really desired to be emperor, Pliny the Elder called him tristissimus hominum, after the death of Tiberius’ son Drusus Julius Caesar in 23 AD, he became more reclusive and aloof. In 26 AD Tiberius removed himself from Rome and left largely in the hands of his unscrupulous Praetorian Prefects Lucius Aelius Sejanus and Quintus Naevius Sutorius Macro. Caligula, Tiberius grand-nephew and adopted grandson, succeeded Tiberius upon his death, Tiberius was born in Rome on 16 November 42 BC to Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. In 39 BC his mother divorced his father and remarried Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus shortly thereafter. In 38 BC his brother, Nero Claudius Drusus, was born, little is recorded of Tiberiuss early life. In 32 BC Tiberius at the age of nine, delivered the eulogy for his father at the rostra. In 29 BC, both he rode in the chariot along with their adoptive father Octavian in celebration of the defeat of Antony. In 23 BC Emperor Augustus became gravely ill and his possible death threatened to plunge the Roman world into chaos again, in response, a series of potential heirs seem to have been selected, among them Tiberius and his brother Drusus. Similar provisions were made for Drusus, shortly thereafter Tiberius began appearing in court as an advocate, and it is presumably here that his interest in Greek rhetoric began. In 20 BC, Tiberius was sent East under Marcus Agrippa, the Parthians had captured the standards of the legions under the command of Marcus Licinius Crassus, Decidius Saxa, and Marc Antony. Augustus was able to reach a compromise whereby the standards were returned, Tiberius married Vipsania Agrippina, the daughter of Augustus’s close friend and greatest general, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. He was appointed to the position of praetor, and sent with his legions to assist his brother Drusus in campaigns in the west

6.
Rome
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Rome is a special comune and the capital of Italy. Rome also serves as the capital of the Lazio region, with 2,873,598 residents in 1,285 km2, it is also the countrys largest and most populated comune and fourth-most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the center of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4.3 million residents, the city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber. Romes history spans more than 2,500 years, while Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at only around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe. The citys early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans and it was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called the Caput Mundi, due to that, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, in 1871 Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, and in 1946 that of the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city, Rome ranked in 2014 as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist attraction in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, monuments and museums such as the Vatican Museums and the Colosseum are among the worlds most visited tourist destinations with both locations receiving millions of tourists a year. Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics and is the seat of United Nations Food, however, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself. As early as the 4th century, there have been alternate theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. There is archaeological evidence of occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago. Evidence of stone tools, pottery and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence, several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the age and the beginning of the Iron age. However, none of them had yet an urban quality, nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city was gradually born through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine. All these happenings, which according to the excavations took place more or less around the mid of the 8th century BC. Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome has been indeed founded with an act of will as the legend suggests in the middle of the 8th century BC remains a fringe hypothesis. Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth

7.
Roman Republic
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It was during this period that Romes control expanded from the citys immediate surroundings to hegemony over the entire Mediterranean world. During the first two centuries of its existence, the Roman Republic expanded through a combination of conquest and alliance, by the following century, it included North Africa, most of the Iberian Peninsula, and what is now southern France. Two centuries after that, towards the end of the 1st century BC, it included the rest of modern France, Greece, and much of the eastern Mediterranean. By this time, internal tensions led to a series of wars, culminating with the assassination of Julius Caesar. The exact date of transition can be a matter of interpretation, Roman government was headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and advised by a senate composed of appointed magistrates. Over time, the laws that gave exclusive rights to Romes highest offices were repealed or weakened. The leaders of the Republic developed a tradition and morality requiring public service and patronage in peace and war, making military. Many of Romes legal and legislative structures can still be observed throughout Europe and much of the world in modern nation states, the exact causes and motivations for Romes military conflicts and expansions during the republic are subject to wide debate. While they can be seen as motivated by outright aggression and imperialism and they argue that Romes expansion was driven by short-term defensive and inter-state factors, and the new contingencies that these decisions created. In its early history, as Rome successfully defended itself against foreign threats in central and then northern Italy, with some important exceptions, successful wars in early republican Rome generally led not to annexation or military occupation, but to the restoration of the way things were. But the defeated city would be weakened and thus able to resist Romanizing influences. It was also able to defend itself against its non-Roman enemies. It was, therefore, more likely to seek an alliance of protection with Rome and this growing coalition expanded the potential enemies that Rome might face, and moved Rome closer to confrontation with major powers. The result was more alliance-seeking, on the part of both the Roman confederacy and city-states seeking membership within that confederacy. While there were exceptions to this, it was not until after the Second Punic War that these alliances started to harden into something more like an empire and this shift mainly took place in parts of the west, such as the southern Italian towns that sided with Hannibal. In contrast, Roman expansion into Spain and Gaul occurred as a mix of alliance-seeking, in the 2nd century BC, Roman involvement in the Greek east remained a matter of alliance-seeking, but this time in the face of major powers that could rival Rome. This had some important similarities to the events in Italy centuries earlier, with some major exceptions of outright military rule, the Roman Republic remained an alliance of independent city-states and kingdoms until it transitioned into the Roman Empire. It was not until the time of the Roman Empire that the entire Roman world was organized into provinces under explicit Roman control

8.
Nola
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Nola is town and a modern municipality in the Metropolitan City of Naples in Italy. It lies on the plain between Mount Vesuvius and the Apennines and it is traditionally credited as the diocese that introduced bells to Christian worship. Illegal dumping of wastes by the Camorra, however, has turned the surrounding area into a Triangle of Death, with cancer rates far above the European average. Excavations at Nola-Croce del Papa have uncovered evidence of a small village quickly abandoned at the time of the Avellino Eruption in the 17th century BC. This powerful eruption from Mount Vesuvius caused the inhabitants to leave behind a range of pottery. The foundations of their buildings are preserved in imprints among the mud left by the eruption. Nola was one of the oldest cities of Campania, with its most ancient coins bearing the name Nuvlana and it was later said to have been founded by the Ausones, who were certainly occupying the city by c. 560 BC. It once vied in luxury with Capua, during the Roman invasion of Naples in 328 BC, Nola was probably occupied by the Oscans in alliance with the Samnites. Amid the Samnite War, the Romans took the town in 311 BC, under Roman rule, the city was the site of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battles of Nola during Hannibals invasion of Italy amid the Second Punic War. On two occasions, it was defended by Marcellus and it fell by treason to the Samnites during the Social War. They held it until their ally Gaius Marius was defeated by Lucius Cornelius Sulla and it was stormed by Spartacus during his failed slave revolt. The emperor Augustus died there on 19 August AD14, in allegedly the same room his father died, Augustus and Vespasian settled colonies in the area. In the Roman road network, Nola lay between Capua and Lower Nocera on the Via Popilia, a branch road ran from it to Abella and Avellino. Though a relative backwater, Nola retained its status as a municipium, its own institutions, and it was divided into pagi, the names of some of which are preserved, Pagus Agrifanus, Capriculanus, Lanitanus. They are decorated with red figures, following the rise of Christianity, it became a bishopric. One bishop, the Christian senator Paulinus, is credited with the introduction of the use of bells to Christian worship. His small handbells were subsequently known as nolas for his seat, revered as a saint, Paulinuss relics turned the town into a site of Christian pilgrimage. Nola was sacked by Alaric in 410 and by the Vandals under Gaiseric in 453 and it was raided by Muslim invaders in 904 and captured by Manfred of Sicily in the 13th century

9.
Roman Italy
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Roman Italy was created officially by the Roman emperor Augustus with the Latin name Italia. It was the first time in history that the Italian Peninsula was united under the same name, in the year 292, the three islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily were added to Roman Italy by Diocletian. Roman Italy remained united until the sixth century, when it was divided between the Byzantine Empire and territories of the Germanic peoples, since then, Italia remained divided for nearly thirteen centuries until 1861 when it was reunited in a similar way in the modern Kingdom of Italy. Italy was the name of the division of the Italian Peninsula during the Roman era. It was not a province, but became the territory of the city of Rome, following the end of the Social War, Rome had allowed its Italian allies full rights in Roman society and granted the Roman citizenship to all the Italic peoples. Although not founded as a city in 330, Constantinople gained in importance. It finally gained the rank of capital when given an urban prefect in 359. In 402, the capital was moved to Ravenna from Milan, the name Italia covered an area whose borders evolved over time. Under Augustus, the peoples of todays Aosta Valley and of the western and northern Alps were subjugated, and the Italian eastern border was brought to the Arsia in Istria. Finally, in the late 3rd century, Italy came to include the islands of Corsica and Sardinia and Sicily, as well as Raetia, the city of Emona was the easternmost town of Italy. At the beginning of the era, Italy was a collection of territories with different political statuses. Some cities, called municipia, had independence from Rome, while others. The Italian economy flourished, agriculture, handicraft and industry had a sensible growth, the Italian population may have grown as well, three census were ordered by Augustus, to record the number of Roman citizens throughout the empire. The surviving totals were 4,063,000 in 28 BC,4,233,000 in 8 BC, and 4,937,000 in AD14, but it is still debated whether these counted all citizens, all adult male citizens, or citizens sui iuris. During the Crisis of the Third Century the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the pressures of invasions, military anarchy and civil wars. In 284, emperor Diocletian restored political stability and he carried out thorough administrative reforms to maintain order. He created the so-called Tetrarchy whereby the empire was ruled by four co-emperors and he decreased the size of the Roman provinces by doubling their number to reduce the power of the provincial governors. He grouped the provinces into several dioceses and put them under the supervision of the imperial vicarius, during the Crisis of the Third Century the importance of Rome declined because she was far from the troubled frontiers

10.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor

11.
Mausoleum of Augustus
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The Mausoleum of Augustus is a large tomb built by the Roman Emperor Augustus in 28 BC on the Campus Martius in Rome, Italy. The mausoleum is located on the Piazza Augusto Imperatore, near the corner with Via di Ripetta as it runs along the Tiber. The grounds cover an equivalent to a few city blocks. The interior of the mausoleum is not open to tourists, the mausoleum was one of the first projects initiated by Augustus in the City of Rome following his victory at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The mausoleum was circular in plan, consisting of concentric rings of earth and brick, planted with cypresses on top of the building and capped by a conical roof. Vaults held up the roof and opened up the spaces below. Twin pink granite obelisks flanked the entryway, these have been removed, one now stands at the Piazza dellEsquilino. The completed mausoleum measured 90 m in diameter by 42 m in height, a corridor ran from the entryway into the heart of the mausoleum, where there was a chamber with three niches to hold the golden urns enshrining the ashes of the Imperial Family. LacusCurtius claims however that The story of its plundering by Alaric in 410 has no historical foundation, in the Middle Ages the tumulus was fortified as a castle— as was the mausoleum of Hadrian, which was turned into the Castel SantAngelo— and occupied by the Colonna family. After the disastrous defeat of the Commune of Rome at the hands of the Count of Tusculum in 1167, the Colonna were disgraced and banished, and their fortification in the Campo was dismantled. It was not until the 1930s that the site was opened as an archaeological landmark along with the newly moved and reconstructed Ara Pacis nearby. Mussolini viewed himself especially connected to the achievements of Augustus, seeing himself as a reborn Augustus ready to usher in a new age of Italian dominance, res Gestae Divi Augusti Catacombs of Rome Dal Maso, Leonardo B. Lanciani, Rodolfo, Pagan and Christian Rome,1892, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London,1951. Mausoleum Augusti at LacusCurtius Images of the Mausoleum of Augustus

12.
Livia
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Livia Drusilla, also known as Julia Augusta after her formal adoption into the Julian family in AD14, was the wife of the Roman emperor Augustus throughout his reign, as well as his adviser. She was the mother of the emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of the emperor Claudius, paternal great-grandmother of the emperor Caligula and she was deified by Claudius who acknowledged her title of Augusta. She was born on 30 January 59 or 58 BC as the daughter of Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus by his wife Aufidia, the diminutive Drusilla often found in her name suggests that she was a second daughter. Marcus Livius Drusus Libo was her adopted brother and she was probably married in 43 BC. Her father married her to Tiberius Claudius Nero, her cousin of patrician status who was fighting him on the side of Julius Caesars assassins against Octavian. Her first child, the future Emperor Tiberius, was born in 42 BC, later, Livia, her husband Tiberius Nero and their two-year-old son, Tiberius, moved on to Greece. At this time, Livia already had a son, the future emperor Tiberius, legend said that Octavian fell immediately in love with her, despite the fact that he was still married to Scribonia. Octavian divorced Scribonia in 39 BC, on the day that she gave birth to his daughter Julia the Elder. Seemingly around that time, when Livia was six months pregnant, on 14 January, the child was born. Augustus and Livia married on 17 January, waiving the traditional waiting period, Tiberius Claudius Nero was present at the wedding, giving her in marriage just as a father would. The importance of the patrician Claudii to Octavians cause, and the survival of the Claudii Nerones are probably more rational explanations for the tempestuous union. Nevertheless, Livia and Augustus remained married for the next 51 years, after Mark Antonys suicide following the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Octavian had removed all obstacles to his power and henceforth ruled as Emperor, from 27 BC on, under the honorary title Augustus. He and Livia formed the model for Roman households. Despite their wealth and power, Augustuss family continued to live modestly in their house on the Palatine Hill, Livia would set the pattern for the noble Roman matrona. She wore neither excessive jewelry nor pretentious costumes, she took care of the household and her husband, always faithful, in 35 BC Octavian gave Livia the unprecedented honour of ruling her own finances and dedicated a public statue to her. She had her own circle of clients and pushed many protégés into political offices, including the grandfathers of the later emperors Galba and Otho. With Augustus being the father of one daughter, Livia revealed herself to be an ambitious mother and soon started to push her own sons Tiberius. Drusus was a general and married Augustuss favourite niece, Antonia Minor

13.
Julia the Elder
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Julia the Elder, known to her contemporaries as Julia Caesaris filia or Julia Augusti filia, was the daughter and only biological child of Augustus, the first emperor of the Roman Empire. Augustus subsequently adopted several male members of his family as sons. Julia resulted from Augustus second marriage with Scribonia, her birth occurring on the day as Scribonias divorce from Augustus. Octavian divorced Julias mother the day of her birth and took Julia from her soon thereafter, Octavian, in accordance with Roman custom, claimed complete parental control over her. She was sent to live with her stepmother Livia when she was old enough and her education appears to have been strict and somewhat old-fashioned. Thus, in addition to her studies, Suetonius informs us, Macrobius mentions her love of literature and considerable culture, a thing easy to come by in that household. Julias social life was controlled, and she was allowed to talk only to people whom her father had vetted. However, Octavian had an affection for his daughter and made sure she had the best teachers available. Macrobius preserves a remark of Augustus, There are two daughters that I have to put up with, the Roman commonwealth and Julia. In 37 BC, during Julias early childhood, Octavians friends Gaius Maecenas and it was sealed with an engagement, Antonys ten-year-old son Marcus Antonius Antyllus was to marry Julia, then two years old. The engagement never led to a marriage because civil war broke out, in 31 BC, at the Battle of Actium, Octavian and Agrippa defeated Antony and his wife, Cleopatra. In Alexandria, they committed suicide, and Octavian became sole ruler of the Roman Empire. As with most aristocratic Roman women of the period, expectations of Julia focused on marriage and her family first married her off, like many Roman girls, in her early teens. In 25 BC, at the age of fourteen, Julia married her cousin Marcus Claudius Marcellus, There were rumors that Marcellus had been chosen as Augustus successor, but Julias father was not present, he was fighting a war in Spain and had fallen ill. Marcellus died in September 23 BC when Julia was sixteen, in 21 BC, having now reached the age of 18, Julia married Agrippa, a man from a modest family who had risen to become Augustus most trusted general and friend. This step is said to have taken partly on the advice of Maecenas. Since Agrippa was nearly 25 years her elder, it was an arranged marriage. There is from this period the report of an infidelity with one Sempronius Gracchus and this was the first of a series of alleged adulteries

14.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic

15.
Julio-Claudian dynasty
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The term Julio-Claudian dynasty refers to the first five Roman emperors—Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero—or the family to which they belonged. They ruled the Roman Empire from its formation under Augustus in the half of the 1st century BC, until AD68 when the last of the line, Nero. Primogeniture is notably absent in the history of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, adoption ultimately became a tool that most Julio-Claudian emperors utilized in order to promote their chosen heir to the front of the succession. Augustus, himself a son of his great-uncle, the Roman dictator Julius Caesar, adopted his stepson and son-in-law Tiberius as his son. Tiberius was, in turn, required to adopt his nephew Germanicus, the ancient historians who dealt with this period—chiefly Suetonius and Tacitus —write in generally negative terms about their reign. The histories of Tiberius, Caius, Claudius, and Nero, while they were in power, were falsified through terror, Julius and Claudius were two Roman family names, in classical Latin, they came second. Roman family names were inherited from father to son, but a Roman aristocrat could – either during his life or in his will – adopt an heir if he lacked a natural son. In accordance with Roman naming conventions, the son would replace his original family name with the name of his adopted family. A famous example of this custom is Julius Caesars adoption of his great-nephew, Augustus, as Caesars adopted son and heir, discarded the family name of his natural father and initially renamed himself Gaius Julius Caesar after his adoptive father. It was also customary for the son to acknowledge his original family by adding an extra name at the end of his new name. As such, Augustus adopted name would have been Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, however, there is no evidence that he ever used the name Octavianus. Following Augustus ascension as the first emperor of the Roman Empire in 27 BC, his became an de facto royal house. For various reasons, the Julio-Claudians followed in the example of Julius Caesar, the next four emperors were closely related through a combination of blood relation, marriage and adoption. Tiberius, a Claudian by birth, became Augustus stepson after the marriage to Livia. Tiberius connection to the Julian side of the Imperial family grew closer when he married Augustus only daughter and he ultimately succeeded Augustus as emperor in AD14 after becoming his stepfathers adopted son and heir. Caligula was born into the Julian and Claudian branches of the Imperial family and his father, Germanicus, was the son of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor, the son of Livia and the daughter of Octavia Minor respectively. Germanicus was also a great-nephew of Augustus on his mothers side and his wife, Agrippina the Elder, was a granddaughter of Augustus. Through Agrippina, Germanicus children – including Caligula – were Augustus great-grandchildren, when Augustus adopted Tiberius, the latter was required to adopt his brothers eldest son as well, thus allowing Germanicus side of the Imperial family to inherit the Julius nomen

16.
Gaius Octavius (proconsul)
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Gaius Octavius was an ancestor to the Roman Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Hailing from Velitrae, he descended from an old, wealthy equestrian branch of the gens Octavia, despite being from a wealthy family, his family was plebeian, rather than patrician. As a novus homo, he would not be of a senatorial family and his grandfather, Gaius Octavius, fought as a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War. His father Gaius Octavius was a magistrate who lived to an advanced age. He is a distant relative to Gnaeus Octavius, the consul of 87 BC who led the opposition to Lucius Cornelius Cinna, Octavius first wife was named Ancharia. It is not known how the marriage ended, although it is possible that Ancharia died during child birth and he later married the niece of Julius Caesar, Atia Balba Caesonia. How they met is not known, although Atias family on her fathers side lived close to Velitrae and they had two children, Octavia Minor and the Emperor Augustus, the latter of whom was born in 63 BC. Octavius was elected quaestor, believed to have been in 70 BC, in 61 BC, he was elected praetor. In 60 BC, after his term had ended, he was appointed propraetor, before he left for Macedonia, the senate sent him to put down a slave rebellion at Thurii. These slaves had taken part in the rebellions of Spartacus. Cicero had high regard for his diplomatic dealings, because of his successful term as governor of Macedonia, he won the support necessary to be elected consul. In 59 BC, Octavius sailed to Rome, to stand for election as consul, however, he died in Nola, before arriving in Rome. He supposedly died in the bedroom where his son Augustus would pass away many years later. Octavia Julio-Claudian family tree Suetonius - The Twelve Caesars - Augustus vs. 1-8 Augustus, The Life of Romes First Emperor, by Anthony Everitt

17.
Atia (mother of Augustus)
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The name Atia Balba was also borne by the other two daughters of Julia and her husband praetor Marcus Atius Balbus. They were Atia’s older sister Atia Balba Prima, and her sister was Atia Balba Tertia. As a result, she was referred to as Atia Balba Secunda to differentiate her from her two sisters. In former portrayals of the ancient history the mother of Augustus, religiously and with the utmost delicacy she regulated not only the serious tasks of her youthful charges, but also their recreations and their games. On a sudden a serpent glided up to her and shortly went away, in the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of Apollo. Atia too, before she gave him birth, dreamed that her vitals were borne up to the stars and spread over the extent of land and sea. Atia was so fearful for her sons safety that she and Philippus urged him to renounce his rights as Caesars heir and she died during her sons first consulship, in August or September 43 BC. Octavian honored her memory with a public funeral, another Philippus, consul suffectus in 38 BC and the son of her second husband from previous marriage, later married one of her sisters. Her first marriage was with Gaius Octavius, the praetor in 61 BC and her family lived close to Velitrae, ancestral home of the Octavii. They had two children, Octavia Minor, born in 69 BC, and the younger Gaius Octavius, Octavius died in 59 BC, when their son Gaius Octavius was four years old. That same year Atia remarried to Lucius Marcius Philippus, consul in 56 BC, many of her childrens descendants became major figures of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, among them were the emperors Caligula, Claudius and Nero. A fictionalised Atia of the Julii is portrayed by Polly Walker in the BBC-HBO-RAI television series Rome, there she is portrayed as shrewd, manipulative, sexually uninhibited, and extremely mindful of her familys advancement. Atia A portrait bust of Atia can be seen under the fourth section, Parents

18.
Religion in ancient Rome
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The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety in maintaining good relations with the gods. According to legends, most of Romes religious institutions could be traced to its founders, particularly Numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king of Rome, who negotiated directly with the gods. This archaic religion was the foundation of the mos maiorum, the way of the ancestors or simply tradition, as Rome came into contact with foreign cultures, and conquered them, foreign religions increasingly attracted devotees among Romans, who increasingly had ancestry from elsewhere in the Empire. The emperors promoted the Imperial cult around the empire, and this, ultimately, Roman polytheism was brought to an end with the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the empire. The priesthoods of public religion were held by members of the elite classes, there was no principle analogous to separation of church and state in ancient Rome. During the Roman Republic, the men who were elected public officials might also serve as augurs. Priests married, raised families, and led politically active lives, Julius Caesar became pontifex maximus before he was elected consul. The augurs read the will of the gods and supervised the marking of boundaries as a reflection of universal order, Roman religion was thus practical and contractual, based on the principle of do ut des, I give that you might give. Even the most skeptical among Romes intellectual elite such as Cicero, for ordinary Romans, religion was a part of daily life. Each home had a shrine at which prayers and libations to the familys domestic deities were offered. Neighborhood shrines and sacred such as springs and groves dotted the city. The Roman calendar was structured around religious observances, women, slaves, and children all participated in a range of religious activities. The Romans are known for the number of deities they honored. The Romans looked for common ground between their major gods and those of the Greeks, adapting Greek myths and iconography for Latin literature, etruscan religion was also a major influence, particularly on the practice of augury. The mysteries, however, involved exclusive oaths and secrecy, conditions that conservative Romans viewed with suspicion as characteristic of magic, conspiratorial, or subversive activity. Sporadic and sometimes brutal attempts were made to suppress religionists who seemed to threaten traditional morality and unity, one way that Rome incorporated diverse peoples was by supporting their religious heritage, building temples to local deities that framed their theology within the hierarchy of Roman religion. Inscriptions throughout the Empire record the worship of local and Roman deities. Because Romans had never been obligated to one god or one cult only

19.
Caligula
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Caligula, properly Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was Roman emperor from AD 37–41. Born Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, Caligula was a member of the house of rulers known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligulas biological father was Germanicus, and he was the great-nephew, the young Gaius earned the nickname Caligula from his fathers soldiers while accompanying him during his campaigns in Germania. When Germanicus died at Antioch in AD19, his wife Agrippina the Elder returned with her six children to Rome, the conflict eventually led to the destruction of her family, with Caligula as the sole male survivor. Untouched by the intrigues, Caligula accepted the invitation to join the Emperor in AD31 on the island of Capri. With the death of Tiberius in AD37, Caligula succeeded his grand uncle, there are few surviving sources about the reign of Emperor Caligula, although he is described as a noble and moderate ruler during the first six months of his reign. After this, the focus upon his cruelty, sadism, extravagance. He directed much of his attention to construction projects and luxurious dwellings for himself. During his reign, the empire annexed the Kingdom of Mauretania as a province, in early AD41, Caligula was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy by officers of the Praetorian Guard, senators, and courtiers. Gaius Julius Caesar was born in Antium on 31 August 12 AD, Gaius had two older brothers, Nero and Drusus, as well as three younger sisters, Agrippina the Younger, Julia Drusilla and Julia Livilla. He was also a nephew of Claudius, Germanicus younger brother, Agrippina the Elder was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder. She was a granddaughter of Augustus and Scribonia on her mothers side, through Agrippina, Augustus was the maternal great-grandfather of Gaius. As a boy of just two or three, Gaius accompanied his father, Germanicus, on campaigns in the north of Germania, the soldiers were amused that Gaius was dressed in a miniature soldiers outfit, including boots and armour. He was soon given his nickname Caligula, meaning little boot in Latin, Gaius, though, reportedly grew to dislike this nickname. Suetonius claims that Germanicus was poisoned in Syria by an agent of Tiberius, after the death of his father, Caligula lived with his mother until her relations with Tiberius deteriorated. Tiberius would not allow Agrippina to remarry for fear her husband would be a rival, Agrippina and Caligulas brother, Nero, were banished in 29 AD on charges of treason. The adolescent Caligula was then sent to live with his great-grandmother Livia, after her death, he was sent to live with his grandmother Antonia. In 30 AD, his brother, Drusus Caesar, was imprisoned on charges of treason, Suetonius writes that after the banishment of his mother and brothers, Caligula and his sisters were nothing more than prisoners of Tiberius under the close watch of soldiers

20.
Claudius
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Claudius was Roman emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and he was born at Lugdunum in Gaul, the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy. Claudius infirmity probably saved him from the fate of other nobles during the purges of Tiberius and Caligulas reigns. His survival led to his being declared Emperor by the Praetorian Guard after Caligulas assassination, despite his lack of experience, Claudius proved to be an able and efficient administrator. He was also a builder, constructing many new roads, aqueducts. During his reign the Empire began the conquest of Britain, having a personal interest in law, he presided at public trials, and issued up to twenty edicts a day. He was seen as vulnerable throughout his reign, particularly by elements of the nobility, Claudius was constantly forced to shore up his position, this resulted in the deaths of many senators. These events damaged his reputation among the ancient writers, though more recent historians have revised this opinion, many authors contend that he was murdered by his own wife. After his death in 54 AD, his grand-nephew and adopted son Nero succeeded him as Emperor, Claudius was born on 1 August 10 BC at Lugdunum. He had two siblings, Germanicus and Livilla. His mother, Antonia, may have had two children who died young. His maternal grandparents were Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, Augustus sister and his paternal grandparents were Livia, Augustus third wife, and Tiberius Claudius Nero. During his reign, Claudius revived the rumor that his father Drusus was actually the son of Augustus. In 9 BC, his father Drusus unexpectedly died on campaign in Germania, Claudius was then left to be raised by his mother, who never remarried. When Claudius disability became evident, the relationship with his family turned sour, Antonia referred to him as a monster, and used him as a standard for stupidity. She seems to have passed her son off on his grandmother Livia for a number of years, Livia was a little kinder, but nevertheless often sent him short, angry letters of reproof. He was put under the care of a former mule-driver to keep him disciplined, under the logic that his condition was due to laziness, however, by the time he reached his teenage years his symptoms apparently waned and his family took some notice of his scholarly interests. In 7 AD, Livy was hired to tutor him in history and he spent a lot of his time with the latter and the philosopher Athenodorus

21.
Nero
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Nero was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, during his reign, the redoubtable general Corbulo conducted a successful war and negotiated peace with the Parthian Empire. His general Suetonius Paulinus crushed a revolt in Britain, Nero annexed the Bosporan Kingdom to the empire and may have begun the First Jewish–Roman War. In 64 AD, most of Rome was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome, Suetonius, writing a generation later, claims that many Romans believed Nero himself had started the fire, in order to clear land for his planned palatial complex, the Domus Aurea. In 68, the rebellion of Vindex in Gaul and later the acclamation of Galba in Hispania drove Nero from the throne, facing a false report of being denounced as a public enemy who was to be executed, he committed suicide on 9 June 68. His death ended the Julio-Claudian dynasty, sparking a period of civil wars known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Neros rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance and he is known for many executions, including that of his mother, and the probable murder by poison of his stepbrother Britannicus. Nero was rumored to have had captured Christians dipped in oil and this view is based on the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio, the main surviving sources for Neros reign, but a few sources paint Nero in a more favourable light. Some sources, including some mentioned above, portray him as an emperor who was popular with the common Roman people, some modern historians question the reliability of ancient sources when reporting on Neros tyrannical acts. Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Nero, was born on 15 December 37 in Antium and he was the only son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger, sister of Emperor Caligula. Neros father, Gnaeus, was the son of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, Gnaeus was thus the grandson of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and probably Aemilia Lepida on his fathers side, and the grandson of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor on his mothers side. Thus, Nero had as his paternal grandmother Antonia Major, through Octavia, Nero was the great-nephew of Caesar Augustus. Neros father had employed as a praetor and was a member of Caligulas staff when the latter travelled to the East. Neros father was described by Suetonius as a murderer and a cheat who was charged by Emperor Tiberius with treason, adultery, Tiberius died, allowing him to escape these charges. Neros father died of edema in 39 when Nero was two, Neros mother was Agrippina the Younger, a great-granddaughter of Caesar Augustus and his wife Scribonia through their daughter Julia the Elder and her husband Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. Agrippinas father, Germanicus, was a grandson of Augustuss wife, Livia, on one side and Mark Antony, Germanicus mother Antonia Minor was a daughter of Octavia Minor and Mark Antony. Germanicus was also the son of Tiberius. Agrippina poisoned her second husband Passienus Crispus, so many ancient historians also accuse her of murdering her third husband, the emperor Claudius

22.
Julia (gens)
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The gens Julia or Iulia was one of the most ancient patrician families at Ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic, the first of the family to obtain the consulship was Gaius Julius Iulus in 489 BC. The nomen Julius became very common in times, as the descendants of persons enrolled as citizens under the early emperors began to make their mark in history. The Julii were without doubt of Alban origin, and it is mentioned as one of the leading Alban houses and it is not impossible that some of the Julii may have settled at Bovillae after the fall of Alba Longa. Aeneas was, in turn, the son of Venus and Anchises, in order to prove the identity of Ascanius and Iulus, recourse was had to etymology, some specimens of which the reader curious in such matters will find in Servius. Other traditions held that Iulus was the son of Aeneas by his Trojan wife, Creusa, while Ascanius was the son of Aeneas and Lavinia, daughter of Latinus. Though it would seem that the Julii first came to Rome in the reign of Tullus Hostilius, in the later Empire, the distinction between praenomen, nomen, and cognomen was gradually lost, and Julius was treated much like a personal name, which it ultimately became. The Latin form is common in languages, but other familiar forms exist, including Giulio, Julio, Jules, Júlio, Iuliu. The Julii of the Republic used the praenomina Lucius, Gaius, there are also instances of Vopiscus and Spurius in the early generations of the family. The earliest of the Julii appearing in legend bore the praenomen Proculus, in the later Republic and imperial times, Vopiscus and Proculus were generally used as personal cognomina. The name was revived as a praenomen by Marcus Antonius, the triumvir. Classical Latin did not distinguish between the letters I and J, which were written with I, and for this reason the name is sometimes written Julus, just as Julius is also written Iulius. The many Julii of imperial times, who were not descended from the gens Julia, on coins the only names which we find are Caesar and Bursio, the latter of which does not occur in ancient writers. Iulus, also written as Iullus and Julus, was the surname of the eldest branch of the Julii to appear in Roman history, the gens claimed descent from Iulus, who was in some manner connected with Aeneas, although the traditions differed with respect to the details. In some accounts, Iulus was the son of Aeneas and Creüsa, in others, Ascanius was the son of Creüsa, while Iulus was the son of Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, the king of Latium with whom Aeneas made peace after landing in Italy. In still different accounts, Iulus was the son not of Aeneas, perhaps an indigenous origin of the name is suggested by De Origo Gentis Romanae, in which Iulus and Ascanius are identical. Described as the son of Jupiter, he was known as Jobus. This calls to mind the use of Jove for Jupiter, and the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology suggests that Iulus might be a diminutive of Dius, furthermore, Livy reports that after his death Aeneas was worshiped as Jupiter Indiges, the local Jove

23.
Claudia (gens)
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The gens Claudia, sometimes written Clodia, was one of the most prominent patrician houses at Rome. The gens traced its origin to the earliest days of the Roman Republic, plebeian Claudii are found fairly early in Romes history. Some may have descended from members of the family who had passed over to the plebeians. Writing several decades after the fall of the so-called Julio-Claudian dynasty, the patrician Claudii were noted for their pride and arrogance, and intense hatred of the commonalty. In his History of Rome, Niebuhr writes, That house during the course of centuries produced several very eminent, few great men, in all ages it distinguished itself alike by a spirit of haughty defiance, by disdain for the laws, and iron hardness of heart. According to legend, the first of the Claudii was a Sabine, by the name of Attius Clausus, who came to Rome with his retainers in 504 BC, the sixth year of the Republic. At this time, the fledgling Republic was engaged in warfare with the Sabines. When his efforts failed, he defected to the Romans, bringing with him no fewer than five hundred men able to bear arms, according to Dionysius. Clausus, who exchanged his Sabine name for the Latin Appius Claudius, was enrolled among the patricians, the emperor Claudius is said to have referred to these traditions in a speech made before the Roman Senate, in which he argued in favor of admitting Gauls to that body. My ancestors, the most ancient of whom was made at once a citizen, by imperial times, the influence of the Claudii was so great that the poet Virgil flattered them by a deliberate anachronism. In his Aeneid, he makes Attius Clausus a contemporary of Aeneas, to whose side he rallies with a host of quirites, the nomen Claudius, originally Clausus, is usually said to be derived from the Latin adjective claudus, meaning lame. As a cognomen, Claudus is occasionally found in other gentes, however, since there is no tradition that any of the early Claudii were lame, the nomen might refer to some ancestor of Attius Clausus. It could also have been metaphorical, or ironic, and the possibility remains that this derivation is erroneous. The metathesis of Clausus into Claudius, and its common by-form, Clodius, involves the alternation of o and au, which seems to have been common in words of Sabine origin. The alternation of s and d occurs in words borrowed from Greek, Latin rosa from Greek rhodos, the name could have come from Greek settlers in Latium, but there is no evidence in favor of this hypothesis. The early Claudii favored the praenomina Appius, Gaius, and Publius and these names were used by the patrician Claudii throughout their history. Tiberius was used by the family of the Claudii Nerones, while Marcus, the plebeian Claudii seem to have used all of the praenomina that the patrician Claudii used, as well as Quintus, Sextus, and at least occasionally Lucius. The praenomen Appius is often said to have unique to the Claudii

24.
Julio-Claudian family tree
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Around the start of the Common Era, the family trees of the gens Julia and the gens Claudia became intertwined into the Julio-Claudian family tree as a result of marriages and adoptions. The Julio-Claudian dynasty was the first dynasty of Roman emperors, all emperors of that dynasty descended from Julii Caesares and/or from Claudii. Note that descendancy of the Julii Caesares before the generation of Julius Caesars grandfather is in part conjectural, in the Julio-Claudian dynasty of Roman emperors the lineage of the Julii Caesares was separated from those of the Claudii up to Augustus generation. The next generation had both Claudii with a Julia as ancestor, as Claudii adopted into the Julii Caesares family, after Tiberius, the remaining three emperors of the dynasty had, outside adoptions, ancestors both in the Julian as the Claudian families. Gaius Julius Caesar II and Lucius Julius Caesar II may have had Sextus Julius Caesar and this generation of Julii Caesares has two consuls, Sextus Julius Caesar III in 91 BC, and Lucius Julius Caesar III the next year. Following Sullas example Julius Caesars and Pompeys first marriages were with women of their own generation, after being betrothed to Cossutia, Julius Caesars first wife was Cornelia, the mother of Julia. The younger of Caesars two sisters married Marcus Atius, they were ancestors of all the Julio-Claudian emperors, apart from Tiberius and this is also the generation of Mark Antonys parents. Mark Antonys mother Julia Antonia was the daughter of Lucius Julius Caesar III, by this time marriages with a political agenda among the powerful families were in full swing, however not yet between Julii Caesares and Claudii. Pompey married Julius Caesars daughter Julia, Julius Caesars second wife Pompeia, possibly a great-granddaughter of Lucius Julius Caesar II, was a granddaughter of Sulla. His third wife Calpurnia is said to be younger than his daughter and his son Caesarion resulted from his relation with Cleopatra. Atia Balba Caesonia, the daughter of Julius Caesars sister, married Gaius Octavius, they became the parents of the first emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and their daughter Octavia the Younger became an ancestor to the last three emperors of that dynasty. In this generation Mark Antony had children by, among others, Antonia Hybrida Minor, the Claudii were a powerful gens with consuls and other high ranking politicians in several of its families across several generations. In this generation the first marriages between Claudii and descendants of the Julii Caesares took place. This however didnt mean yet that the family trees of both gentes got merged into a single one, that didnt happen until the adoption of Claudii by Julii Caesares in the generations to come. Octavia the Youngers first husband was a Claudius from the Marcelli family, clodia Pulchra, descending from Claudii, became the first wife of Octavian, who by then was adopted in the Julii Caesares family by the testament of his uncle Julius Caesar. After her first husbands death, Octavia married Mark Antony, who besides the offspring of his first three marriages had had children by Cleopatra, Octavianus, becoming Augustus the first Roman emperor, married Scribonia who gave him a daughter. His last marriage was with Livia, a Claudia who had married to a Claudius. Their son Tiberius, by birth a Claudius, was adopted by Augustus, thus, like his stepfather Augustus

25.
Year of the Four Emperors
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The Year of the Four Emperors was a year in the history of the Roman Empire, AD69, in which four emperors ruled in succession, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. The suicide of the emperor Nero in 68 was followed by a period of civil war. The social, military and political upheavals of the period had Empire-wide repercussions, in 65, the Pisonian conspiracy attempted to restore the Republic, but failed. A number of executions followed, leaving Nero with few allies left in the Senate. Vindexs revolt in Gaul was unsuccessful, the legions stationed at the border to Germania marched to meet Vindex and confront him as a traitor. Led by Lucius Verginius Rufus, the Rhine army defeated Vindex in battle, Galba was at first declared a public enemy by the Senate. In June 68, the Praetorian Guard prefect, Nymphidius Sabinus, as part of a plot to become emperor himself, Nero was suddenly powerless and the Senate declared him an enemy of the state. He fled the city and committed suicide, Galba was recognized as emperor and welcomed into the city at the head of a single legion, VII Galbiana, later known as VII Gemina. This turn of events did not give the German legions the reward for loyalty that they had expected and their commander, Rufus, was immediately replaced by the new emperor. Aulus Vitellius was appointed governor of Germania Inferior, the loss of political confidence in Germanias loyalty also resulted in the dismissal of the Imperial Batavian Bodyguards and rebellion. Galba did not remain popular for long, on his march to Rome, he either destroyed or took enormous fines from towns that did not accept him immediately. In Rome, Galba cancelled all the reforms of Nero, including benefits for many important persons, like his predecessor, Galba had a fear of conspirators and executed many senators and equites without trial. The soldiers of the Praetorian Guard were not happy either, after his safe arrival in Rome, Galba refused to pay them the rewards that the prefect Nymphidius had promised them in the new emperors name. Moreover, at the beginning of the year of 69 on January 1. On the following day, the legions acclaimed their governor Vitellius as emperor, hearing the news of the loss of the Rhine legions, Galba panicked. He adopted a young senator, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus, as his successor, by doing this, he offended many, above all Marcus Salvius Otho, an influential and ambitious nobleman who desired the honor for himself. Otho bribed the Praetorian Guard, already unhappy with the emperor. When Galba heard about the coup détat, he went to the streets in an attempt to stabilize the situation and it proved a mistake, because he could not attract any supporters

26.
Imperator
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The Latin word imperator was originally a title roughly equivalent to commander under the Roman Republic. Later it became a part of the titulature of the Roman Emperors as part of their cognomen, the English word emperor derives from imperator via Old French Empereür. The Roman emperors themselves generally based their authority on multiple titles and positions, nevertheless, imperator was used relatively consistently as an element of a Roman rulers title throughout the principate and the dominate. In Latin, the form of imperator is imperatrix, denoting a ruling female. When Rome was ruled by kings, to be able to rule, so, after the comitia curiata, held to elect the king, the king also had to be conferred the imperium. In Roman Republican literature and epigraphy, an imperator was a magistrate with imperium, but also, mainly in the later Roman Republic and during the late Republican civil wars, imperator was the honorific title assumed by certain military commanders. After an especially great victory, an armys troops in the field would proclaim their commander imperator, an acclamation necessary for a general to apply to the Senate for a triumph. After being acclaimed imperator, the general had a right to use the title after his name until the time of his triumph. Since a triumph was the goal of many politically ambitious Roman commanders, in 15 AD Germanicus was also imperator during the empire of his adoptive father Tiberius. As a permanent title, imperator was used as a praenomen by the Roman emperors and was taken on accession, after the reign of Tiberius, the act of being proclaimed imperator was transformed into the act of imperial accession. In fact, if a general was acclaimed by his troops as imperator, at first the term continued to be used in the Republican sense as a victory title but attached to the de facto monarch and head of state, rather than the actual military commander. The title followed the name along with the number of times he was acclaimed as such. In time it became the title of the de facto monarch, nevertheless, this title was used in Greek-language texts for Roman emperors from the establishment of the empire. After the Roman empire collapsed in the West in the 5th century, Latin continued to be used as the language of learning, the Roman emperors of this period were referred to as imperatores in Latin texts, while the word basileus was used in Greek. After 800, the imperator was used as a formal Latin title in succession by the Carolingian and German Holy Roman Emperors until 1806,1480 to likewise assert their contention to be the heirs to the Byzantine state Reigning female Russian rulers were styled imperatritsa. Still, in rare cases in which a European monarchs Latin titles were used. Famously, after assuming the title Emperor of India, British monarchs would follow their signatures with the initials RI, standing for rex imperator. George VI of the United Kingdom was the last European ruler to claim a title, when he abdicated as Emperor of India in 1948

27.
Augustus (honorific)
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Augustus, /ɔːˈɡʌstəs/, Classical Latin, Latin for majestic, the increaser, or venerable), was an ancient Roman title given as both name and title to Gaius Octavius, Romes first Emperor. On his death, it became a title of his successor. The feminine form Augusta was used for Roman empresses and other females of the Imperial family, the masculine and feminine forms originated in the time of the Roman Republic, in connection with things considered divine or sacred in traditional Roman religion. In Romes Greek-speaking provinces, Augustus was translated as sebastos, or hellenised as augoustos, after the fall of the Roman Empire, Augustus was sometimes used as a name for men of aristocratic birth, especially in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire. It remains a name for males. Some thirty years before its first association with Caesars heir, Augustus was an honorific with religious associations. One early context, associates it with provincial Lares, in poetry and prose it was the elevation or augmentation of what is already sacred or religious. Some Roman sources connected it to augury, and Rome was said to have been founded with the august augury of Romulus, the first true Roman Emperor known as augustus was Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. He was the son and heir of Julius Caesar, who had been murdered for his seeming aspiration to divine monarchy. Octavian studiously avoided any association with Caesars claims, other than acknowledging his position and duties as Divi filius, nevertheless, his position was unique, and extraordinary. He had ended Romes prolonged and bloody war with his victory at Actium. As princeps senatus he presided at senatorial meetings and he was pontifex maximus, chief priest of Roman state religion. He held consular imperium, with authority equal to the chief executive, he was supreme commander of all Roman legions. As a tribune, his person was inviolable and he had the right to any act or proposal by any magistrate within Rome. He was officially renamed Augustus by the Roman Senate on January 16,27 BC – or perhaps the Senate ratified his own choice, Romulus had been considered. His full and official title was Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus and this extension of an Imperial honorific to major and minor deities of Rome and her provinces is considered a ground-level feature of Imperial cult. It continued until the replacement of Romes traditional religions by Christianity. The title or name of Augustus was adopted by his successors, most emperors also used imperator but others could and did bear the same title and functions

28.
Principate
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This reflects the principate emperors assertion that they were merely first among equals among the citizens of Rome. The title itself derived from the position of the princeps senatus, although dynastic pretences crept in from the start, formalizing this in a monarchic style remained politically unthinkable. Afterwards, Imperial rule in the Empire is designated as the dominate, initially, the theory implied the first citizen had to earn his extraordinary position by merit in the style that Augustus himself had gained the position of auctoritas. Large distributions of food for the public and charitable institutions were also means that served as popularity boosters while the construction of public works provided employment for the poor. With the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, the principate was redefined in formal terms under the Emperor Vespasian, the position of princeps became a distinct entity within the broader – formally still republican – Roman constitution. Under the Antonine dynasty, it was the norm for the Emperor to appoint a successful, in modern historical analysis, this is treated by many authors as an ideal situation, the individual who was most capable was promoted to the position of princeps. Of the Antonine dynasty, Edward Gibbon famously wrote that this was the happiest and most productive period in human history and this first phase was to be followed by, or rather evolved into, the so-called dominate. Richard Alston, Aspects of Roman History, henning Börm, Wolfgang Havener, Octavians Rechtsstellung im Januar 27 v. Chr. und das Problem der „Übertragung“ der res publica. Gedanken zur Periodisierung der römischen Kaiserzeit, kurt A. Raaflaub, Mark Toher, Between Republic and Empire, Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate. Berkeley / Los Angeles / Oxford 1990

29.
Augustus
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Augustus was the founder of the Roman Principate and considered the first Roman emperor, controlling the Roman Empire from 27 BC until his death in AD14. He was born Gaius Octavius into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia and his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesars will as his adopted son and heir, then known as Octavianus. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar, following their victory at the Battle of Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvate was eventually torn apart by the ambitions of its members. Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, in reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and it took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis, the resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of peace known as the Pax Romana. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, expanding into Germania, beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. Augustus died in AD14 at the age of 75 and he probably died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son Tiberius, Augustus was known by many names throughout his life, At birth, he was named Gaius Octavius after his biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius between his birth in 63 until his adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, upon his adoption, he took Caesars name and became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman adoption naming standards. He quickly dropped Octavianus from his name, and his contemporaries referred to him as Caesar during this period, historians. In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra and it is the events of 27 BC from which he obtained his traditional name of Augustus, which historians use in reference to him from 27 BC until his death in AD14. While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri, approximately 40 kilometres from Rome and he was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum. He was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his fathers victory at Thurii over a band of slaves. Due to the nature of Rome at the time, Octavius was taken to his fathers home village at Velletri to be raised. Octavius only mentions his fathers equestrian family briefly in his memoirs and his paternal great-grandfather Gaius Octavius was a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War

30.
Equites
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A member of the equestrian order was known as an eques. During the Roman kingdom and the 1st century of the Republic, legionary cavalry was recruited exclusively from the ranks of the patricians, around 400 BC,12 more centuriae of cavalry were established and these included non-patricians. Around 300 BC the Samnite Wars obliged Rome to double the annual military levy from two to four legions, doubling the cavalry levy from 600 to 1,200 horses. Legionary cavalry started to recruit wealthier citizens from outside the 18 centuriae and these new recruits came from the First Class of commoners in the centuriate organisation and were not granted the same privileges. By the time of the Second Punic War, all the members of the First Class of commoners were required to serve as cavalrymen. After c.88 BC, equites were no longer drafted into the legionary cavalry and they continued to supply the senior officers of the army throughout the Principate. With the exception of the purely hereditary patricians, the equites were originally defined by a property threshold, in the later Republican period, Roman Senators and their offspring became an unofficial elite within the equestrian order. As senators ability to engage in commerce was limited by law. As well as holding large landed estates, equites came to dominate mining, shipping and manufacturing industry, in particular, tax farming companies were almost all in the hands of equites. Under Augustus, the elite was given formal status with a higher wealth threshold and superior rank. During the Principate, equites filled the senior administrative and military posts of the imperial government, there was a clear division between jobs reserved for senators and those reserved for non-senatorial equites. Senators and equites formed an elite of under 10,000 members who monopolised political, military. This effectively reduced the Italian aristocracy to an idle, but immensely wealthy group of large landowners, during the 4th century, the status of equites was debased to insignificance by excessive grants of the rank. At the same time the ranks of senators were swollen to over 4,000 by the establishment of a second senate in Constantinople, the senatorial order of the 4th century was thus the equivalent of the equestrian order of the Principate. According to Roman legend, Rome was founded by its first king, Romulus, however, archaeological evidence suggests that Rome did not acquire the character of a unified city-state until ca.625 BC. This cavalry regiment was supposedly doubled in size to 600 men by King Tarquinius Priscus and that the cavalry was increased to 600 during the regal era is plausible, as in the early Republic the cavalry fielded remained 600-strong. However, according to Livy, king Servius Tullius established a further 12 centuriae of equites, apparently, equites were originally provided with a sum of money by the state to purchase a horse for military service and for its fodder. This was known as an equus publicus, mommsen argues that the royal cavalry was drawn exclusively from the ranks of the Patricians, the aristocracy of early Rome, which was purely hereditary

31.
Plebs
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In ancient Rome, the plebs was the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census. From the 4th century BC or earlier, they were known as commoners, literary references to the plebs, however, usually mean the ordinary citizens of Rome as a whole, as distinguished from the elite—a sense retained by plebeian in English. In the very earliest days of Rome, plebeians were any tribe or clan without advisers to the King, in time, the word – which is related to the Greek word for crowd, plethos – came to mean the common people. In Latin the word plebs is a collective noun. The 19th-century historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr held that plebeians began to appear at Rome during the reign of Ancus Marcius and were possibly foreigners settling in Rome as naturalized citizens. In any case, at the outset of the Roman Republic, Plebeians were excluded from magistracies and religious colleges, and they were not permitted to know the laws by which they were governed. Plebeians served in the army, but rarely became military leaders, from the mid-4th century to the early 3rd century BC, several plebeian–patrician tickets for the consulship repeated joint terms, suggesting a deliberate political strategy of cooperation. Although nobilitas was not a social rank during the Republican era. Such a man was a homo, a new man or self-made noble and his sons. Marius and Cicero are notable examples of novi homines in the late Republic, when many of Romes richest and most powerful men—such as Lucullus, Crassus, and Pompeius—were plebeian nobles. Some or perhaps many noble plebeians, including Cicero and Lucullus, by contrast, the populares or peoples party, which sought to champion the plebs in the sense of common people, were sometimes led by patricians such as Julius Caesar and Clodius Pulcher. In the U. S. military, Plebes are freshmen at the U. S, Military Academy, U. S. Naval Academy, Valley Forge Military Academy, the Marine Military Academy, the U. S. Merchant Marine Academy, Georgia Military College, California Maritime Academy, the term is also used for new cadets at the Philippine Military Academy. Early public schools in the United Kingdom would enroll pupils as plebeians as opposed to sons of gentry, vulgarism Bread and circuses Capite censi Plebeian Council Plebgate – a scandal in the United Kingdom in 2012 Proletariat Roman Republic Jackson J. Spielvogel. Smiths Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, article Plebs Livius. org, Plebs Texts on Wikisource, Plebeians

32.
Assassination of Julius Caesar
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The assassination of Julius Caesar was the result of a conspiracy by many Roman senators. Led by Gaius Cassius Longinus, Decimus Junius Brutus, and Marcus Junius Brutus, Caesar was the dictator of the Roman Republic at the time, having recently been declared dictator perpetuo by the Senate. This declaration made several senators fear that Caesar wanted to overthrow the Senate in favor of tyranny, the conspirators were unable to restore the Roman Republic. The ramifications of the led to the Liberators civil war and, ultimately. Biographers describe tension between Caesar and the Senate, and his claims to the title of king. These events were the motive for Caesars assassination. The Senate named Caesar dictator perpetuo, Roman mints produced a denarius coin with this title and his likeness on one side, and with an image of the goddess Ceres and Caesars title of Augur Pontifex Maximus on the reverse. According to Cassius Dio, a delegation went to inform Caesar of new honors they had bestowed upon him in 44 BC. Caesar received them while sitting in the Temple of Venus Genetrix, Suetonius wrote that Caesar failed to rise in the temple, either because he was restrained by Cornelius Balbus or that he balked at the suggestion he should rise. Suetonius also gave the account of a crowd assembled to greet Caesar upon his return to Rome, a member of the crowd placed a laurel wreath on the statue of Caesar on the Rostra. The tribunes Gaius Epidius Marullus and Lucius Caesetius Flavus ordered that the wreath be removed as it was a symbol of Jupiter, Caesar had the tribunes removed from office through his official powers. According to Suetonius, Caesar was unable to dissociate himself from the title from this point forward. Suetonius also gives the story that a crowd shouted to him rex, to which Caesar replied, I am Caesar, not Rex. Also, at the festival of the Lupercalia, while he gave a speech from the Rostra, Mark Antony, Caesar put it aside to use as a sacrifice to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Plutarch and Suetonius are similar in their depiction of these events and he then places the crowd shouting rex on the Alban Hill with the tribunes arresting a member of this crowd as well. The plebeian protested that he was unable to speak his mind freely, Caesar then brought the tribunes before the senate and put the matter to a vote, thereafter removing them from office and erasing their names from the records. Suetonius adds that Lucius Cotta proposed to the Senate that Caesar should be granted the title of king for it was prophesied that only a king would conquer Parthia, Caesar intended to invade Parthia, a task that later gave considerable trouble to Mark Antony during the second triumvirate. His many titles and honors from the Senate were ultimately merely that, Caesar continually strove for more power to govern, with as little dependence as possible on honorary titles or the Senate

33.
Adoption in ancient Rome
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In ancient Rome, adoption of boys was a fairly common procedure, particularly in the upper senatorial class. The need for a heir and the expense of raising children and the Roman inheritance rules strictly demanding legitimes were strong incentives to have at least one son. Adoption, the solution, also served to cement ties between families, thus fostering and reinforcing alliances. Adoption of girls, however, was less common. In the Imperial period, the system acted as a mechanism for ensuring a smooth succession. As Rome was ruled by a number of powerful families, every senators duty was to produce sons to inherit the estate, family name. However, a family was an expensive luxury. Daughters had to be provided with a dowry and sons had to be pushed through the political stages of the cursus honorum. The higher the status of a family, the higher was the cost. Roman families therefore typically restricted their families to three children, the six children of Appius Claudius Pulcher were considered unusual. Sometimes, not having enough children proved to be a choice, as infants could die. For families with too many sons and the ones with no boys at all, even the wealthy Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus did not hesitate in giving his two oldest boys up for adoption, one to the Cornelii Scipiones the other to one of the Fabii Maximi. In Roman law, the power to children in adoption was one of the recognised powers of the paterfamilias. The adopted boy would usually be the oldest, the one with proven health, adoption was an expensive agreement for the childless family and quality had to be ensured. Adoption was agreed between families by the giving the boy they wanted to adopt equal status, often political allies and/or with blood connections. A plebeian adopted by a patrician would become a patrician, and vice versa, however, at least in Republican times, a sum of money was exchanged between the parties and the boy assumed the adoptive fathers name and a cognomen that indicated his original family. Adoption was neither secretive nor considered to be shameful, the boy was not even expected to cut ties to his original family. Like a marriage contract, adoption was a way to reinforce interfamily ties, the adopted child was often in a privileged situation, enjoying both original and adoptive family connections

34.
Mark Antony
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Antony was a supporter of Julius Caesar, and served as one of his generals during the conquest of Gaul and the Civil War. Antony was appointed administrator of Italy while Caesar eliminated political opponents in Greece, North Africa, the Triumvirs defeated Caesars murderers, the Liberatores, at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, and divided the government of the Republic between themselves. Antony was assigned Romes eastern provinces, including the client kingdom of Egypt, then ruled by Cleopatra VII Philopator, relations among the Triumvirs were strained as the various members sought greater political power. Civil war between Antony and Octavian was averted in 40 BC, when Antony married Octavians sister, Octavia, despite this marriage, Antony carried on a love affair with Cleopatra, who bore him three children, further straining Antonys relations with Octavian. Lepidus was expelled from the association in 36 BC, and in 33 BC disagreements between Antony and Octavian caused a split between the remaining Triumvirs. Their ongoing hostility erupted into war in 31 BC, as the Roman Senate, at Octavians direction, declared war on Cleopatra. Later that year, Antony was defeated by Octavians forces at the Battle of Actium, Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt, where they committed suicide. With Antony dead, Octavian was the master of the Roman world. In 27 BC, Octavian was granted the title of Augustus, marking the stage in the transformation of the Roman Republic into an empire. A member of the plebeian Antonia gens, Antony was born in Rome on January 14,83 BC. His father and namesake was Marcus Antonius Creticus, son of the noted orator by the name who had been murdered during the Marian Terror of the winter of 87–86 BC. His mother was Julia Antonia, a distant cousin of Julius Caesar, Antony was an infant at the time of Lucius Cornelius Sullas march on Rome in 82 BC. According to the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero, Antonys father was incompetent and corrupt, in 74 BC he was given military command to defeat the pirates of the Mediterranean, but he died in Crete in 71 BC without making any significant progress. Lentulus, despite exploiting his political success for financial gain, was constantly in debt due to the extravagance of his lifestyle and he was a major figure in the Second Catilinarian Conspiracy and was summarily executed on the orders of the Consul Cicero in 63 BC for his involvement. His death resulted in a feud between the Antonia and the famous orator, Antonys early life was characterized by a lack of proper parental guidance. According to the historian Plutarch, he spent his teenage years wandering through Rome with his brothers and friends gambling, drinking, Antonys contemporary and enemy, Cicero, claimed he had a homosexual relationship with Gaius Scribonius Curio. There is little information on his political activity as a young man, although it is known that he was an associate of Publius Clodius Pulcher. He may also have involved in the Lupercal cult as he was referred to as a priest of this order later in life

35.
Marcus Aemilius Lepidus (triumvir)
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Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, was a Roman patrician who was triumvir with Octavian and Mark Antony, and the last Pontifex Maximus of the Roman Republic. Lepidus had previously been an ally of Julius Caesar. Though he was a military commander and proved a useful partisan of Caesar. He typically appears as a figure in depictions of the events of the era. While some scholars have endorsed this view, others argue that the evidence is insufficient to discount the distorting effects of propaganda by his opponents, principally Cicero and, later, Augustus. Lepidus was the son of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, his mother may have been a daughter of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus and his brother was Lucius Aemilius Lepidus Paullus. His father was the first leader of the populares faction after the death of Sulla. Lepidus married Junia Secunda, sister of Marcus Junius Brutus and Junia Tertia, Lepidus and Junia Secunda had at least one child, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus the Younger. Lepidus joined the College of Pontiffs as a child and he started his cursus honorum as triumvir monetalis, overseeing the minting of coins, from c. Lepidus soon became one of Julius Caesars greatest supporters and he was appointed as a praetor in 49 BC, being placed in charge of Rome while Caesar defeated Pompey in Greece. He secured Caesars appointment as dictator, a position Caesar used to get elected as Consul. Lepidus was rewarded with the position of Proconsul in the Spanish province of Hispania Citerior, while in Spain Lepidus was called upon to act to quell a rebellion against Quintus Cassius Longinus, governor of neighbouring Hispania Ulterior. Lepidus refused to support Cassius, who had created opposition to Caesars regime by his corruption and he negotiated a deal with the rebel leader, quaestor Marcellus, and helped defeat an attack by the Mauretanian king Bogud. Cassius and his supporters were allowed to leave and order was restored, Caesar and the Senate were sufficiently impressed by Lepdiuss judicial mixture of negotiation and surgical military action that they granted him a Triumph. Lepidus was rewarded with the consulship in 46 BC after the defeat of the Pompeians in the East, Caesar also made Lepidus magister equitum, effectively his deputy. Caesar appears to have had confidence in Lepidus than in Mark Antony to keep order in Rome. Lepidus appears to have been shocked when Antony provocatively offered Caesar a crown at the Lupercalia festival. When in February 44 BC Caesar was elected dictator for life by the senate, the brief alliance in power of Caesar and Lepidus came to a sudden end when Caesar was assassinated on March 1544 BC

36.
Second Triumvirate
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The Triumvirate existed for two five-year terms, covering the period 43 BC to 33 BC. Octavian, despite his youth, extorted from the Senate the post of consul for 43 BC. He had been warring with Antony and Lepidus in upper Italia and this triumvirate of new leaders was established in 43 BC as the Triumviri Rei Publicae Constituendae Consulari Potestate. Where the first triumvirate was essentially an agreement, the second was embedded in the constitution formally joining Augustus, Antony. Antony retained Cisalpine Gaul and hegemony over Gaul itself, and Octavian held Africa and was given authority over Sicily and Sardinia. )In order to refill the treasury. As all three had been partisans of Caesar, their targets were opponents of the Caesarian faction. The most notable victims were Marcus Tullius Cicero, who had opposed Caesar and excoriated Antony in his Philippics, and Marcus Favonius, a follower of Cato, the proscription of Caesars legate Quintus Tullius Cicero seems to have been motivated by the perceived need to destroy Ciceros family. For ancient writers, the most shocking proscriptions were those of Caesars legate Lucius Julius Caesar and they were added to the list because they had been the first to condemn Antony and Lepidus after the two allied. Octavians colleague in the consulate that year, his cousin, Quintus Pedius and this became a broad pattern of the Triumvirates two terms, during the ten years of the Triumvirate, there were 42 consuls in office, rather than the expected 20. In 42 BC, Octavian and Antony set out to war, after the victory, Antony and Octavian agreed to divide the provinces of the Republic into spheres of influence. Octavian — who had begun calling himself Divi filius after Caesars deification as Divus Julius and now styled himself simply Imperator Caesar — took control of the West, as a result, the province of Cisalpine Gaul was absorbed into Italy. Narbonese Gaul was absorbed into Gallia Comata, creating a unified Gaul, Octavian took over Spain from Lepidus. Lepidus himself was left with nothing, but was offered the prospect of control over Africa, the excuse given for this was a report that Lepidus had been traitorously negotiating with Sextus Pompey. If he were proved innocent he would have Africa, Octavian returned to Rome to administer the distribution of land to his veterans. Antony remained in the east to bring Brutus and Cassius former territories under triumvirate control. The reduced role of Lepidus is evident in the fact that far fewer coins depict him from this point on, Octavians land redistribution caused widespread tensions, as farmers were dispossessed in favour of soldiers. Antonys brother Lucius Antonius, who was serving as Consul, stood up for the dispossessed farmers, the conflict led to the Perusine War, in which Lucius gathered an army of supporters to challenge Octavian. He was encouraged by Mark Antonys wife Fulvia, Lepidus held Rome with two legions while Octavian left to gather his army, but Lucius defeated Lepidus, who was forced to flee to Octavian

37.
Battle of Philippi
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The battle consisted of two engagements in the plain west of the ancient city of Philippi. The first occurred in the first week of October, Brutus faced Octavian, at first, Brutus pushed back Octavian and entered his legions camp. But to the south, Cassius was defeated by Antony, Brutus rallied Cassius remaining troops and both sides ordered their army to retreat to their camps with their spoils, and the battle was essentially a draw, but for Cassius suicide. A second encounter, on 23 October, finished off Brutuss forces, after the murder of Caesar, Brutus and Cassius had left Italy and taken control of all Eastern provinces and of the allied Eastern kingdoms. In Rome the three main Caesarian leaders, who controlled almost all the Roman army in the west, had crushed the opposition of the senate and established the second triumvirate. One of their first tasks was to destroy the Liberators’ forces, not only to get control of the Roman world. The triumvirs decided that Lepidus would remain in Italy, while the two partners of the triumvirate moved to Northern Greece with their best troops. They were able to ferry their army across the Adriatic and sent out a force of eight legions along the via Egnatia. Norbanus and Saxa passed the town of Philippi in eastern Macedonia, Antony was following, while Octavian was delayed at Dyrrachium because of his ill-health. They had spent the previous months plundering Greek cities to swell their war-chest and had gathered in Thrace with the Roman legions from the Eastern provinces and levies from allies. With their superior forces they were able to outflank Norbanus and Saxa, thus, Brutus and Cassius could position holding the high ground along both sides of the via Egnatia, about 3.5 km west of the city of Philippi. The south position was anchored to a supposedly impassable marsh, while on the north to impervious hills and they had plenty of time to fortify their position with a rampart and a ditch. Brutus put his camp on the north while Cassius on the south of the via Egnatia, Antony arrived shortly and positioned his army on the south of the via Egnatia, while Octavian put his legions north of the road. The Triumvirs army included nineteen legions, appian reports that the triumvirs’ legions were almost at full complement. Furthermore, they had a large allied cavalry force, the Liberators army had seventeen legions. Only two of the legions were at full strength, but the army was reinforced by levies from the Eastern allied kingdoms, appian reports that the army mustered a total of about 80,000 foot-soldiers. Allied cavalry included a total of 17,000 horsemen, including 5,000 bowmen mounted in the Eastern fashion and this army included the old Caesarean legions present in the East, thus most of these legionaries were former Caesarean veterans. However, at least the XXXVI legion consisted of old Pompeian veterans, the loyalty of the soldiers who were supposed to fight against Caesar’s heir was a delicate issue for the Liberators

38.
Battle of Actium
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Octavians fleet was commanded by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, while Antonys fleet was supported by the power of Queen Cleopatra of Ptolemaic Egypt. Octavians victory enabled him to consolidate his power over Rome and its dominions and he adopted the title of Princeps and some years later was awarded the title of Augustus by the Roman Senate. This became the name by which he was known in later times, the battle also marked the start of about three centuries of unequalled Roman naval supremacy over the entirety of the Mediterranean and beyond. The alliance between Octavian, Antony and Lepidus, commonly known as the Second Triumvirate, was renewed for a term in 38 BC. However, the triumvirate broke down when Octavian saw Caesarion, the son of Julius Caesar and Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt. This occurred when Mark Antony, the other most influential member of the triumvirate, abandoned his wife, afterwards he moved to Egypt to start a long-term romance with Cleopatra, becoming the de facto stepfather to Caesarion. Such an affair was doomed to become a political scandal, Antony was inevitably perceived by Octavian and the majority of the Roman Senate as the leader of a separatist movement that threatened to break the unity of the Roman Republic. Both Octavian and Antony had fought against their enemies in the civil war that followed the assassination of Caesar. After years of cooperation with Octavian, Antony started to act independently, eventually raising his rivals suspicion that he was vying to become sole master of Rome. As a personal challenge to Octavians prestige, Antony tried to get Caesarion accepted as an heir of Caesar. Antony and Cleopatra formally elevated Caesarion, then 13, to power in 34 BC, giving him the vague, being a son of Caesar, such an entitlement was felt as a threat to Roman republican traditions. According to a belief, Antony had once offered a diadem to Caesar. It was also said that Antony intended to move the capital of the empire to Alexandria, as the Second Triumvirate formally expired on the last day of 33 BC, Antony wrote to the Senate that he did not wish to be reappointed. He hoped that he might be regarded by them as their champion against the ambition of Octavian, the causes of mutual dissatisfaction between the two had been continually accumulating. Antony complained that Octavian had exceeded his powers in deposing Lepidus, in taking over the countries held by Sextus Pompeius, during 32 BC, a third of the Senate and both consuls allied with Antony. The consuls had determined to conceal the extent of Antonys demands, after staying with his allies at Samos, Antony moved to Athens. His land forces, which had been in Armenia, came down to the coast of Asia, Octavian was not behind in his strategic preparations. Military operations began in 31 BC, when Octavians general Agrippa captured Methone, in addition to the deposition Octavian procured a vote for a proclamation of war against Cleopatra – well understood to mean against Antony, though he was not named

Claudius issued this denarius type to emphasize his clemency after Caligula's assassination. The depiction of the goddess Pax-Nemesis, representing subdued vengeance, would be used on the coins of many later emperors.

The equites (Latin: eques nom. singular; sometimes called "knights" in modern times because of the involvement of …

A Roman senior officer (centre) of the time of Polybius, as depicted on a bas-relief from the Altar of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, ca. 122 BC. Probably a tribunus militum (joint legionary commander), the officer wears a decorated bronze cuirass, pteruges, mantle, and Attic-style helmet with horsehair plume. The sash around his cuirass probably denoted knightly rank. In the Republican army, tribuni were elected by the comitia centuriata (main people's assembly) from the members of the equestrian order. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

A Roman coin issued during the Second Punic War (218-201 BC) showing (obverse) the god of war Mars and (reverse) probably the earliest image of a Roman cavalryman of the Republican era. Note helmet with horsehair plume, long spear (hasta), small round shield (parma equestris), flowing mantle. Roman cavalry was levied from the equites, and from volunteers of the second property class, until the early 1st century BC. Bronze quincunx from Larinum mint.

Tombstone of the knight Titus Cornasidius Sabinus, detailing a typical equestrian career in the imperial period. Sabinus initially held posts in the local government of Lavinium, a town in Latium, then served as a military officer, first as praefectus (commander) of cohors I Montanorum (in Pannonia), then tribunus militum of legio II Augusta (in Britannia), and finally praefectus of ala veterana Gallorum (in Aegyptus). Then, after a stint as subpraefectus classis (deputy commander) of the imperial fleet at Ravenna, Sabinus was governor of the Alpes Poeninae and then of Dacia Apulensis provinces. His son, who erected the memorial, is described as of equo publico rank. Dated to the early Severan period (193-211)

The emperor Maximinus I (Thrax) (ruled 235-8), whose career epitomises the soldier-equestrians who took over command of the army during the 3rd century. A Thracian shepherd who had led a group of peasant vigilantes against rural robbers in his home region, he joined the army as a cavalryman in ca. 197 under Septimius Severus and was probably granted an equus publicus by Caracalla towards the end of his rule (218). Under Alexander Severus he was given command of a legion and later served as provincial governor (praeses pro legato) in Mauretania Tingitana and in Germania before seizing supreme power in a coup d'état in 235

Augustus (plural augusti; ;Classical Latin: [awˈɡʊstʊs], Latin for "majestic", "the increaser" or "venerable"), was an …

A Roman coin featuring the emperor Diocletian and the title Augustus on the right

A coin of the late 3rd century emperor Probus, showing abbreviated titles and honorifics - IMP·C·PROBUS·INVIC·P·F·AUG

A late Byzantine example of Augustus in imperial titulature: in this miniature from ca. 1404, Manuel II Palaiologos is titled "basileus and autokrator of the Romans", but also "aei augoustos" ("always augustus"), after the late antique formula "semper augustus".

Pax Romana (Latin for "Roman Peace") was the long period of relative peacefulness and minimal expansion by the Roman …

Extent of the Roman Empire under Augustus. Yellow represents the extent of the Republic in 31 BC, while green represents gradually conquered territories under the reign of Augustus, and pink areas represent client states.

The Roman Senate (Latin: Senatus Romanus; Italian: Senato Romano) was a political institution in ancient Rome. It was …

Representation of a sitting of the Roman senate: Cicero attacks Catiline, from a 19th-century fresco in Palazzo Madama, Rome, house of the Italian Senate. It is worth noting that idealistic medieval and subsequent artistic depictions of the Senate in session are almost uniformly inaccurate. Illustrations commonly show the senators arranged in a semicircle around an open space where orators were deemed to stand; in reality the structure of the existing Curia Julia building, which dates in its current form from the Emperor Diocletian, shows that the senators sat in straight and parallel lines on either side of the interior of the building. In current media depictions in film this is shown correctly in The Fall of the Roman Empire, and incorrectly in, for example, Spartacus.

The so-called "Togatus Barberini", a statue depicting a Roman senator holding the imagines (effigies) of deceased ancestors in his hands; marble, late 1st century BC; head (not belonging): mid-1st century BC.